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The History of Bestiality Trilogy #1
Frihetens øyeblikk
Frihetens øyeblikk er første bind i trilogien «Bestialitetens historie». Handlingen spenner over et veldig felt både i tid og rom: En middelaldrende rettstjener i en alpeby tar sitt vagabondliv i Europa opp til analyse. Det er en bok om menneskets kår i en ulvetid, om vår omgang med sannheten og løgnen, om det ondes og humanitetens problem. Da romanen første gang kom ut i 1966, fikk Bjørneboe et gjennombrudd hos kritikerne, og romanen førte ham frem i første rekke blant samtidens forfattere, ikke bare i Norge, men i hele Europa.
225 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1966
33 people are currently reading
2160 people want to read
About the author
Jens Bjørneboe
63 books185 followersJens Ingvald Bjørneboe was a Norwegian writer whose work spanned a number of literary formats. He was also a painter and a waldorf school teacher. Bjørneboe was a harsh and eloquent critic of Norwegian society and Western civilization on the whole. He led a turbulent life and his uncompromising humanity would cost him both an obscenity conviction as well as long periods of heavy drinking and bouts of depression, which in the end led to his suicide.
Jens Bjørneboe's first published work was Poems (Dikt) in 1951. He is widely considered to be one of Norway's most important post-war authors. Bjørneboe identified himself, among other self-definitions, as an anarcho-nihilist.
During the Norwegian language struggle, Bjørneboe was a notable proponent of the Riksmål language, together with his equally famous cousin André Bjerke.
Jens Bjørneboe was born in 1920, in Kristiansand to Ingvald and Anna Marie Bjørneboe. He grew up in a wealthy family, his father a shipping magnate and a consul for Belgium. The Bjørneboe family originally immigrated from Germany in the 17th century and later adopted their Norwegian name. Coming from a long line of marine officers, Bjørneboe also went to sea as a young man.
Bjørneboe had a troubled childhood with sickness and depressions. He was bedbound for several years following severe pneumonia. At thirteen he attempted suicide by hanging himself. He began drinking when he was twelve, and he would often consume large amounts of wine when his parents were away. It is also rumored that he drank his father's aftershave on several occasions.
In 1943 Bjørneboe fled to Sweden to avoid forced labor under the Nazi occupation. During this exile, he met the German Jewish painter Lisel Funk, who later became his first wife. Lisel Funk introduced him to many aspects of German culture, especially German literature and the arts.
Bjørneboe's early work was poetry, and his first book was Poems (Dikt, 1951), consisting mainly of deeply religious poetry.
Bjørneboe wrote a number of socially critical novels. Among those were Ere the Cock Crows (Før Hanen Galer, 1952), Jonas (1955) and The Evil Shepherd (Den Onde Hyrde, 1960). Ere the Cock Crows is a critique of what Bjørneboe saw as the harsh treatment, after the Second World War, of people suspected of having associated in any way with the Nazis (among them the Norwegian writer and Nobel Prize in Literature winner Knut Hamsun). Jonas deals with injustices and shortcomings of the school system and The Evil Shepherd with the Norwegian prison system.
His most significant work is generally considered to be the trilogy The History of Bestiality, consisting of the novels Moment of Freedom (Frihetens Øyeblikk, 1966), Powderhouse (Kruttårnet, 1969) and The Silence (Stillheten, 1973).
Bjørneboe also wrote a number of plays, among them The Bird Lovers (Fugleelskerne, 1966), Semmelweis (1968) and Amputation (Amputasjon, 1970), a collaboration with Eugenio Barba and the Danish theatre ensemble Odin Teatret.
In 1967, he was convicted for publishing a novel deemed pornographic, Without a Stitch (Uten en tråd, 1966), which was confiscated and banned in Norway. The trial, however, made the book a huge success in foreign editions, and Bjørneboe's financial problems were (for a period) solved.
His last major work was the novel The Sharks (Haiene, 1974).
After having struggled with depression and alcoholism for a long time, he committed suicide by hanging on May 9, 1976.[2]
In his obituary in Aftenposten, Bjørneboe's life and legacy were described as follows:
"For 25 years Jens Bjørneboe was a center of unrest in Norwegian cultural life: Passionately concerned with contemporary problems in nearly all their aspects, controversial and with the courage to be so, with a conscious will to carry things to extremes. He was not to be pigeonholed. "
Jens Bjørneboe's first published work was Poems (Dikt) in 1951. He is widely considered to be one of Norway's most important post-war authors. Bjørneboe identified himself, among other self-definitions, as an anarcho-nihilist.
During the Norwegian language struggle, Bjørneboe was a notable proponent of the Riksmål language, together with his equally famous cousin André Bjerke.
Jens Bjørneboe was born in 1920, in Kristiansand to Ingvald and Anna Marie Bjørneboe. He grew up in a wealthy family, his father a shipping magnate and a consul for Belgium. The Bjørneboe family originally immigrated from Germany in the 17th century and later adopted their Norwegian name. Coming from a long line of marine officers, Bjørneboe also went to sea as a young man.
Bjørneboe had a troubled childhood with sickness and depressions. He was bedbound for several years following severe pneumonia. At thirteen he attempted suicide by hanging himself. He began drinking when he was twelve, and he would often consume large amounts of wine when his parents were away. It is also rumored that he drank his father's aftershave on several occasions.
In 1943 Bjørneboe fled to Sweden to avoid forced labor under the Nazi occupation. During this exile, he met the German Jewish painter Lisel Funk, who later became his first wife. Lisel Funk introduced him to many aspects of German culture, especially German literature and the arts.
Bjørneboe's early work was poetry, and his first book was Poems (Dikt, 1951), consisting mainly of deeply religious poetry.
Bjørneboe wrote a number of socially critical novels. Among those were Ere the Cock Crows (Før Hanen Galer, 1952), Jonas (1955) and The Evil Shepherd (Den Onde Hyrde, 1960). Ere the Cock Crows is a critique of what Bjørneboe saw as the harsh treatment, after the Second World War, of people suspected of having associated in any way with the Nazis (among them the Norwegian writer and Nobel Prize in Literature winner Knut Hamsun). Jonas deals with injustices and shortcomings of the school system and The Evil Shepherd with the Norwegian prison system.
His most significant work is generally considered to be the trilogy The History of Bestiality, consisting of the novels Moment of Freedom (Frihetens Øyeblikk, 1966), Powderhouse (Kruttårnet, 1969) and The Silence (Stillheten, 1973).
Bjørneboe also wrote a number of plays, among them The Bird Lovers (Fugleelskerne, 1966), Semmelweis (1968) and Amputation (Amputasjon, 1970), a collaboration with Eugenio Barba and the Danish theatre ensemble Odin Teatret.
In 1967, he was convicted for publishing a novel deemed pornographic, Without a Stitch (Uten en tråd, 1966), which was confiscated and banned in Norway. The trial, however, made the book a huge success in foreign editions, and Bjørneboe's financial problems were (for a period) solved.
His last major work was the novel The Sharks (Haiene, 1974).
After having struggled with depression and alcoholism for a long time, he committed suicide by hanging on May 9, 1976.[2]
In his obituary in Aftenposten, Bjørneboe's life and legacy were described as follows:
"For 25 years Jens Bjørneboe was a center of unrest in Norwegian cultural life: Passionately concerned with contemporary problems in nearly all their aspects, controversial and with the courage to be so, with a conscious will to carry things to extremes. He was not to be pigeonholed. "
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 87 reviews
May 3, 2025
The world consists of façades and backyards, of main streets and blind alleys…
Moment of Freedom is a book of contrasts… Hiding behind the splendour of façades the mankind is occupied with dirty doings in the backyards and blind alleys. And hypocrisy is a perfect shield…
The protagonist is a witness of the history and looking back through his life he writes his History of Bestiality – his peculiar manual of human atrocities: unrestricted violence, murders, executions, sexual crimes, tortures and war as an epitome for all of those.
He who is absolutely free to do what he wants, becomes bestial.
My life was for many, many years a long journey in the land of Chaos.
In my position as a Servant of Justice this changed for the first time, and I was able to see life spread out as a logical chessboard in large, coherent images and patterns.
Moment of Freedom is a book of contrasts… Hiding behind the splendour of façades the mankind is occupied with dirty doings in the backyards and blind alleys. And hypocrisy is a perfect shield…
Oh Lord, this ghastly fear of saying or writing the truth! A lie can be corrected, it can be retracted, lied away – it isn’t final. The truth is definitive, a poison like opium and cocaine. Once tell the truth and there’ll be no way back, no more contact, conviviality, community with people.
The protagonist is a witness of the history and looking back through his life he writes his History of Bestiality – his peculiar manual of human atrocities: unrestricted violence, murders, executions, sexual crimes, tortures and war as an epitome for all of those.
Power, which is the sole existing principle, means only one thing: the opportunity to cause others pain… I was always submitting to the idea which had been forced upon me – that the world was right and I myself was wrong. Authority claims truth for its own. The law claims to be just. Power calls itself freedom – because freedom consists in perceiving necessity, which is to submit to power.
He who is absolutely free to do what he wants, becomes bestial.
August 6, 2014
I thought about how I'd staked everything on achieving one single thing: to be at peace with the world!
With the delicate string of dismal observations and a history leading to ambiguous queries, there’s an extraordinary ambition in motion here - of discerning humanity and its bestial ways. Moment of Freedom is a vital jewel in Jens Bjørneboe’s crowning achievement which took up the task of being the first step in reaching a summit of an unnatural, blood-capped mountain raised from the dead bodies of innocent dreams. So there’s not a feat in store for us but a sense of utter defeat for being a spectator of gruesome horrors happened and happening around the world.
The world is full of stars and excrement.A middle-aged Servant of Justice is serving us as a narrator. He diligently performs his duties in the day and by the night, he returns to the dubious comfort of his home to make another frightful entry in the records which carry the motif: The Problem of Evil. One is expected to question as to what all he can write and what all he can leave but he’s a smart writer, having smart ways. One gets transferred from one harsh reality to another and the journey appears ever so smooth because of the presence of dark humor, which is nothing but a deceitful trap of wrapping a straitjacket around the readers and incapacitating them for any stupid try of breaking away. I laughed many laughs which ended in tears of guilt and shame.
Now and then the world and reality lose all coherence and become in the higher sense non-figurative. So I write a little almost every day, but it doesn't help much, because I carefully avoid writing a single word which has anything to do with the truth.Is it because we are undeserving of truth? Does it make us responsible because we are expected to do something about it, like a simple thing of telling it to others? Is the significant sliver of freedom followed by a blinding light of truth burdensome in some inexplicable way? To be honest, I’m afraid of any possible answers but we must question. Just like our narrator who has done so in a both passionate and restrained prose, where digressions becomes a matter of delight and facts become a spectacle of savagery. So there are moments of sorrow, moments of injustice, moments of contempt, moments of humor and moments of truth too but Moment of Freedom is still an elusive dream.
Read this book to learn why.
It will be exciting to see whether I'm suffering from a sickness unto death or a sickness unto life. If one ever gets over it, does one come out of it as a healthy man or as a spiritual invalid?
January 27, 2014
I’m utterly passionate about this Norwegian author and this first book (which is a magnificent, inspirational masterpiece and not to be missed) in the trilogy The History of Bestiality. I actually read the second book first but I do believe that they can be read separately, even though each has its own nameless narrator.
I want this glorious work of art to be unburied and give my sincere thanks to the Norvik Press which was set up by the University of East Anglia, England with financial support from the University of East Anglia, the Danish Ministry for Cultural Affairs, the Norwegian Cultural Department and the Swedish Institute.
Bjørneboe is an individual with a vision. He is considered to be one of Norway’s most important post-war authors and it is thanks to the translator, Esther Greenleaf Mürer, and her passion for his works, that we still continue to have this author’s books readily available. Ms. Mürer’s introduction was also an invaluable tool in seeing what translation stance she took and her own interpretation of the spellbinding sequence of events that unravelled.
The forty-six year old narrator, a Servant of Justice in the Alpine city Heiligenberg, sat down with his large jug of Tuscan wine, poured some into a glass and proceeded to reflect on his life and his opus The History of Bestiality, which consists of ongoing Protocols. Then he looked across the room, upon hearing a faint sound from outside, but what he didn’t know was that it was a woolf wimpering at the door and scratching to come in.
They could both hear the voices of the twentieth century that continuously outraged and saddened them. Whilst the narrator was concerned with the outside world and the injustices of mankind, the latter was concerned with the inner mysterious realms of her mind but then more of her in a later book.
How does one even attempt to describe this amazing book? Bjørneboe was an individual who fought continuously against the establishment, corruption, depravity, inhumane prison systems to name but a few and thanks to this book he found an outlet for his continual frustrations against the miserable state of mankind and where it went wrong. But it is the way that he handles this that is the most remarkable aspect of this book.
Yes, indeed there are wild tirades at times but then he throws a true spanner in the works with his abundant black humour, combined with his delicate and sensitive prose, satirical backlashes delivered with panache on the two World Wars, Roman catacombs, executions (the golden laughter of Leonardo is involved here) and ways of killing individuals, the descriptions of the atrocities committed by the Americans against the Japanese in 1945, modern day society as seen through the eyes of the judge in Heiligenberg. My eyes came out on stalks while I slowly digested his Protocol and I laughed as I read it, both in amazement and in awe that a respected member of the community could act in that way and in his resultant sentencing of individuals. Our narrator wasn’t only displeased; he was going to do something about it. Well I waited and…
The descriptions of the brothels that the narrator (who has a nickname but he doesn’t know his real name) stays in and his experiences there are a delight and the follies of mankind are so readily shown here. But I was also very taken with the dream sequences. They were so lyrical in their own right. And also the plight of animals showed such a sensitive side to Bjørneboe. I was continually entranced.
Colours such a red, black and grey play predominant parts throughout the book, which is divided into three sections: The Cities, The Praiano Papers (colours galore here, mainly red) and Lemuria.
But what I found strangely odd was that the narrator, incidentally, makes no reference to his previous life as a Servant of Justice, his journey to the land of Chaos or his search for a name in a red city. He says simply: "My interests are the same as before, even though I've acquired an ice-cold scientific attitude to reality."
I came across this in another review and it is worth stating here:
The Servant's memoir of Praiano is pure nightmare, recalling his stay in a red-brick town, where he sees the sky bleed, the walls leak blood, and wades ankle-deep in blood, and where he repeatedly encounters a sick, puking cat. As before, he records numerous acts of cruelty towards children and reflects on freedom and grace.
I had questions though. I appreciated that the bears constantly referred to are human beings but as for the lemurs. They were mentioned in Stockholm and appeared to be on a par with eschatologists and scholastics. So I don’t really know. A citizen of Lemuria perhaps?
And then the elements became involved in the guise of the foehn (a warm, dry southerly wind that occurs in the Southern Alps).
When this wind arrives in Heiligenberg, everyone is worried because the rise in temperature causes many strange things, apart from the eruption of tempers and rages in the inhabitants but it is also a murderous time. The judge was relatively lenient on times likes this but it was wise never to kill someone on a day when you could be sentenced. That would not be a good idea at all.
Alcohol and its effects are quite ludicrously shown but so marvellously portrayed. The two alpine villagers with whom the narrator drinks in the local inn bear witness to this with their ensuing discussions and alcoholic consumption. Cider was meant to be the killer as it affected the mind, as did white Alsatian wine. It was always recommended to drink bottles and bottles of Tuscan red wine as you couldn’t possibly go wrong with that.
But it’s freedom which is the cornerstone of the book:
I was dying because I lived in unfreedom without knowing it, and because unfreedom is naturally more comfortable than freedom: it disperses, or even frees one from the responsibility of having an existence. Only through the courage of despair can you grasp a handful of freedom. Freedom is not a thing you receive, it’s something you take for yourself …
This is a veritable tour de force and I could quite continue championing this author with his riveting book ad infinitum. Bravo, cheers and great applause for the maestro Bjørneboe, who incidentally was also a painter and a teacher.
Finally, as soon as I found out that this author had committed suicide, another author immediately sprang to mind – Virginia Woolf. It is said that you can foresee your own death when you make an utterance to that effect during your life or if you have already tried to end your own life. Virginia Woolf was one of those individuals and so was this incredible individual Jens Bjørneboe. Both were aware of their own shortcomings; with Woolf, it was the “fragility” of her mind she had to conquer and with Bjørneboe, his long periods of heavy drinking and depression which led him on the final downward spiral to death. I believe it was the war, compounded with her insecurity about her latest book “Between the Acts” where she has taken a gamble and changed her writing style that was the end for Woolf. We will never know though.
So do read this book. I highly recommend it.
I want this glorious work of art to be unburied and give my sincere thanks to the Norvik Press which was set up by the University of East Anglia, England with financial support from the University of East Anglia, the Danish Ministry for Cultural Affairs, the Norwegian Cultural Department and the Swedish Institute.
Bjørneboe is an individual with a vision. He is considered to be one of Norway’s most important post-war authors and it is thanks to the translator, Esther Greenleaf Mürer, and her passion for his works, that we still continue to have this author’s books readily available. Ms. Mürer’s introduction was also an invaluable tool in seeing what translation stance she took and her own interpretation of the spellbinding sequence of events that unravelled.
The forty-six year old narrator, a Servant of Justice in the Alpine city Heiligenberg, sat down with his large jug of Tuscan wine, poured some into a glass and proceeded to reflect on his life and his opus The History of Bestiality, which consists of ongoing Protocols. Then he looked across the room, upon hearing a faint sound from outside, but what he didn’t know was that it was a woolf wimpering at the door and scratching to come in.
They could both hear the voices of the twentieth century that continuously outraged and saddened them. Whilst the narrator was concerned with the outside world and the injustices of mankind, the latter was concerned with the inner mysterious realms of her mind but then more of her in a later book.
How does one even attempt to describe this amazing book? Bjørneboe was an individual who fought continuously against the establishment, corruption, depravity, inhumane prison systems to name but a few and thanks to this book he found an outlet for his continual frustrations against the miserable state of mankind and where it went wrong. But it is the way that he handles this that is the most remarkable aspect of this book.
Yes, indeed there are wild tirades at times but then he throws a true spanner in the works with his abundant black humour, combined with his delicate and sensitive prose, satirical backlashes delivered with panache on the two World Wars, Roman catacombs, executions (the golden laughter of Leonardo is involved here) and ways of killing individuals, the descriptions of the atrocities committed by the Americans against the Japanese in 1945, modern day society as seen through the eyes of the judge in Heiligenberg. My eyes came out on stalks while I slowly digested his Protocol and I laughed as I read it, both in amazement and in awe that a respected member of the community could act in that way and in his resultant sentencing of individuals. Our narrator wasn’t only displeased; he was going to do something about it. Well I waited and…
The descriptions of the brothels that the narrator (who has a nickname but he doesn’t know his real name) stays in and his experiences there are a delight and the follies of mankind are so readily shown here. But I was also very taken with the dream sequences. They were so lyrical in their own right. And also the plight of animals showed such a sensitive side to Bjørneboe. I was continually entranced.
Colours such a red, black and grey play predominant parts throughout the book, which is divided into three sections: The Cities, The Praiano Papers (colours galore here, mainly red) and Lemuria.
But what I found strangely odd was that the narrator, incidentally, makes no reference to his previous life as a Servant of Justice, his journey to the land of Chaos or his search for a name in a red city. He says simply: "My interests are the same as before, even though I've acquired an ice-cold scientific attitude to reality."
I came across this in another review and it is worth stating here:
The Servant's memoir of Praiano is pure nightmare, recalling his stay in a red-brick town, where he sees the sky bleed, the walls leak blood, and wades ankle-deep in blood, and where he repeatedly encounters a sick, puking cat. As before, he records numerous acts of cruelty towards children and reflects on freedom and grace.
I had questions though. I appreciated that the bears constantly referred to are human beings but as for the lemurs. They were mentioned in Stockholm and appeared to be on a par with eschatologists and scholastics. So I don’t really know. A citizen of Lemuria perhaps?
And then the elements became involved in the guise of the foehn (a warm, dry southerly wind that occurs in the Southern Alps).
When this wind arrives in Heiligenberg, everyone is worried because the rise in temperature causes many strange things, apart from the eruption of tempers and rages in the inhabitants but it is also a murderous time. The judge was relatively lenient on times likes this but it was wise never to kill someone on a day when you could be sentenced. That would not be a good idea at all.
Alcohol and its effects are quite ludicrously shown but so marvellously portrayed. The two alpine villagers with whom the narrator drinks in the local inn bear witness to this with their ensuing discussions and alcoholic consumption. Cider was meant to be the killer as it affected the mind, as did white Alsatian wine. It was always recommended to drink bottles and bottles of Tuscan red wine as you couldn’t possibly go wrong with that.
But it’s freedom which is the cornerstone of the book:
I was dying because I lived in unfreedom without knowing it, and because unfreedom is naturally more comfortable than freedom: it disperses, or even frees one from the responsibility of having an existence. Only through the courage of despair can you grasp a handful of freedom. Freedom is not a thing you receive, it’s something you take for yourself …
This is a veritable tour de force and I could quite continue championing this author with his riveting book ad infinitum. Bravo, cheers and great applause for the maestro Bjørneboe, who incidentally was also a painter and a teacher.
Finally, as soon as I found out that this author had committed suicide, another author immediately sprang to mind – Virginia Woolf. It is said that you can foresee your own death when you make an utterance to that effect during your life or if you have already tried to end your own life. Virginia Woolf was one of those individuals and so was this incredible individual Jens Bjørneboe. Both were aware of their own shortcomings; with Woolf, it was the “fragility” of her mind she had to conquer and with Bjørneboe, his long periods of heavy drinking and depression which led him on the final downward spiral to death. I believe it was the war, compounded with her insecurity about her latest book “Between the Acts” where she has taken a gamble and changed her writing style that was the end for Woolf. We will never know though.
So do read this book. I highly recommend it.
July 15, 2015
Ablaze in the anguish of a never ending human conflict, the ghost of humanity rises from the ashes in unnerving bestiality. Towns, cities, countries are engulfed in its uproar as it sweeps across. The torrent it causes upshot a cataclysm which spares no one. Unheard of crimes become possible; streets turn red, speckled with excrement of sordid actions. Mutilated souls wander through land of chaos unleashing havoc upon those still blameless. Humanity keeps dying and the cycle continues.
The only peace attained is illusive; an adherence to injustice, to tolerate unfreedom, to cure oneself of the burden of impossible freedom. The narrator, a servant of justice, keeping up with his task of recording history of bestiality, is not seeking consolation or crushed virtues. He accepts what cannot be undone and suffers from knowing too much.
“I'm not searching for a lost identity. Quite the contrary. I suffer from an excess of identity, from an ego which is as solid and massive as a boulder. How did all this prodigious identity arise, what substance is it made of, how did this existence get its massiveness?”
The onerous realization abounds a state of melancholy; vague dreams and reality overlap as the line between morality and decadence recede. The words rise to fill the pages, shaping in images of unfortunate people killed in wars or subjected to mass experiments in the mad pursuit of scientific ends, in sexual abuse of children or their mass murder for who needs the burden of worthless children of war, in innocent people turning murderers all of a sudden for the sleeping demon of bestiality woke up to claim its fodder. Bleeding sky sentences the peace of mind. And amidst all this, life still continues on the ration of indifference. An indifference not innate but acquired as the sole sustenance for survival, aided with wine, brothels, paintings and laughter too.
But can this survival by indifference, despite of deep melancholy, be called a state of freedom? A freedom since the mind is conditioned to remain unaffected? Or is freedom the right to exercise as much brutality? Is Power freedom? Or is the unconscious submission to forced ideals freedom? When does the moment of freedom really arrive? Does it only come in the face of death when all illusion is finally lifted or when one takes responsibility?
“At the last stage of alienation, that of becoming irrelevant to oneself, freedom arises: to evaluate everything, a murder or the saving of a life, anew and independently of any code of laws: according to one's own reckoning, here and now. It's a revaluation of all norms, on one's own responsibility.”
Or does the moment of freedom arrive when one accepts the truth?
“When you take our world and peel all the lies off it, then it looks like this: Berlin. The city of stone. The city of ruins. The war has left us like that. We've hardly progressed a step. If one takes away the lies, then we're just standing still. This may sound strange, but the sight of this truth about the world gave me the first feeling of freedom which I'd had in many years.”
What can be said of that. Can the moment of freedom for the reader be the same as that of narrator? For the world is still a chaos, even for all the progress since Second World War, we have hardly progressed further. The ghost of humanity is still at large.
The narrator’s pen rests with an awareness of the gruesome pool of viciousness through which we still wade.
April 3, 2013
“They were handsome, proper and normal family fathers who built the concentration camps and whipped the prisoners to death. And who was Nietzsche? A narcotized syphilitic.”
This extraordinary novel is the first of a trilogy (though each stands independent): Moment of Freedom ("Frihetens øyeblikk", 1966); Powderhouse ("Kruttårnet", 1969); and The Silence ("Stillheten", 1973). This trilogy, entitled “The History of Bestiality” (also the title of the book being composed by the unnamed narrator), is one of the great buried masterpieces of post-war European fiction.
I have read reviews of this novel which comment repeatedly on its lack of plot. It is, in fact, packed full of plots. Thousands of swirling, shattering, mirroring plots glimpsed through the rambles and rants of the narrator. Rather than being a novel in which nothing happens, it is one where the weight of so much brutality enacted by the “little bears” (as the narrator names us) breaks the narrative into shards sharp enough to cut.
The narrator is a court clerk, a servant of justice. An observer of the worst traits of the little bears. He has journeyed through the Land of Chaos, as he names the Europe of the twentieth century, and tries (and fails) to become a dispassionate chronicler of that barbaric century. He is angry. And very funny. And very very sad.
It is rare that I fall in love with a book less than 15 pages in, yet that happened with me here. The tone, the humour, the justified bitterness, the technical skill on display…all served to get this novel firmly under my skin in a very short time indeed.
I cannot recommend it highly enough.
This extraordinary novel is the first of a trilogy (though each stands independent): Moment of Freedom ("Frihetens øyeblikk", 1966); Powderhouse ("Kruttårnet", 1969); and The Silence ("Stillheten", 1973). This trilogy, entitled “The History of Bestiality” (also the title of the book being composed by the unnamed narrator), is one of the great buried masterpieces of post-war European fiction.
I have read reviews of this novel which comment repeatedly on its lack of plot. It is, in fact, packed full of plots. Thousands of swirling, shattering, mirroring plots glimpsed through the rambles and rants of the narrator. Rather than being a novel in which nothing happens, it is one where the weight of so much brutality enacted by the “little bears” (as the narrator names us) breaks the narrative into shards sharp enough to cut.
The narrator is a court clerk, a servant of justice. An observer of the worst traits of the little bears. He has journeyed through the Land of Chaos, as he names the Europe of the twentieth century, and tries (and fails) to become a dispassionate chronicler of that barbaric century. He is angry. And very funny. And very very sad.
It is rare that I fall in love with a book less than 15 pages in, yet that happened with me here. The tone, the humour, the justified bitterness, the technical skill on display…all served to get this novel firmly under my skin in a very short time indeed.
I cannot recommend it highly enough.
February 8, 2017
...it has to be like that so that injustice can take its course. 43This book is a devastating evocation of violence, immorality, and injustice, made only slightly more palatable by the blackest of humor and a dash of literary tact to taste. For literature has always had a certain quality of a screen -- it both exposes and hides. Literature is a comfort. Think of Sebald, Bernhard and Handke, authors who come to mind when reading this one, but there is a holding back in those books, a fear that naming the thing too directly will ruin the art--that need to tell it slant.
One needs a dialectical superstructure in order to speak truly, and he knew it. One needs it in order to die as well, because these two things hang together: there's a smell of death associated with all truth, something of death's shamelessness. Falsehood likewise has its relationship to death. No one knows that better than I myself, who have lied so much. But it's a different relationship. It isn't so inexorable, because a lie can be made right again, it can be corrected with a new lie, it isn't final and absolute. But a truth--once it's out, then it's inexorable--a brother to death. 13But for our narrator, it is the opposite. He is writing a book called The History of Bestiality in which he tries to find personal meaning in the sea of bleak inhumanity that is post-war Europe:
I thought about how I'd staked everything on achieving one single thing: to be at peace with the world! Through many years I'd sought out injustice in order to inure myself to it. That was the whole secret in my plan: to tolerate unfreedom and injustice. 55Saying it that way is humorously backwards. But there is a truth in it too. For his hatred of unfreedom and injustice requires that he lives in it, that he become completely comfortable and resigned to it to the point of acceptance--not of the senseless acts themselves, but of the fact that it has gone on and will go on (and even a weird faith that it serves some kind of mysterious purpose):
In our own excellent times, many have noticed that the world to a certain degree bears the stamp of wars and acts of violence. There are people who take this hard. That's because they don't think enough about ... how every period has been about the same: the total picture is a bloody operating room of an executioner's workshop. Why it should--just by pure accident, all by itself--have become any different after the last century's technological progress, is simply a completely open and unanswered question. 160In a voice of melancholy and bitterness, he takes us through a landscape of dreams, stories, thoughts and recollections. But the price of this encounter with truth is high. His memory is riddled with holes--he doesn't even remember his own name or who he is. One gets the sense that he has traded personal biography for humanity's. That in fact the stories he's collected over the years, and which he recounts for us, stories of normal people doing really shitty things, has somehow replaced his own stories one by one, so that he remembers nothing of it.
Of course I remember a lot from my life, but I have this steadily stronger feeling that I don't remember what it's all about. 177And this form of amnesia also has a certain honesty to it. For the way it works is not unlike the way memory works when we jump from one thing to another. Thus the book in the end feels vague in the best of ways, i.e. one has that feeling of stumbling out of a dream-fugue, that vague amorphous blob that is human experience recollected, but without the writing itself being vague. The writing is always sharp, specific, cutting.
Naturally in the course of the battles great quantities of excrement also went down into the soil, in part evacuations from three million men who expelled their feces in the normal or customary manner--but also immense quantities of excrement which came out through the mouths or purely and simply through the backs or bellies of the combatants; in other words, intestinal content which had been more or less fully converted to excrement, and which naturally had great fertilizer value when mixed with blood and other body fluids. 168 (he goes on for pages comparing the fertilizing value of different types of solders, young vs. old, German vs. Anglo-Celts, etc.)This is not simply a catalogue of wrongs. I hope I didn't give that impression. There's so much in here and it is not boring for a second. It is more like an extended essay with creative fictional elements to it. It is even a call to action, but to personal, meaningful action. There's a tenderness in his voice and a constant feeling of weirdness. The way he calls the subjects of his stories "little bears" for instance is both endearing and creepy at the same time. This is not a perfect book. He puts too much raw (sometimes even sentimental) emotion and political statements in it for that. But perhaps it is better than a perfect book.
The question was clear: Is it I who am mad, or is it the world? I knew the right answer, but I didn't dare to utter it: It is the world which is mad! Instead I bowed and said: The world is right: I am mad--thus making myself the World's accomplice in the Sin against the Holy Spirit. For many years I concealed my terrible deed behind the mask of modesty and humility. 146OK, one more quote... simply because this description of a painting is so telling and so beautiful, to me, and encapsulates something of the futility/hope of the speaker:
One of the pictures which has pursued me ever since, and which has been a companion through life, is Ernst Josephsson's painting La joie de vivre; it shows an old man's deathbed.Between smiles and seriousness--yes that exactly... though the smiles occasionally resemble grimaces.
The whole picture is a soft, mild flicker of light and color; the white, clear afternoon light filters in through the window, dissolving all fixed objects, the bed, the bedclothes, the head and beard on the old, smiling man. Beside the old man are standing in the same all-effacing and flickering light the old wife, a little child, and a young woman. They're all smiling the same soft, contented child's smile as the old man in the bed. Beside him is a glass of wine. In the background an old French peasant cupboard, which also lies under this veil of light. The picture is heavily and thickly painted, with the colors hanging in coarse clumps--and all this weight is in Josephsson's spirit transformed into lightness, to light, to a vibrant shimmer, to a world which is no longer of earth, but of light, all the pain of sickness and decay has turned into joy in life, to la grande joie de vivre; the world has once again become a flowering, matter is conquered, and the old man's face, his smile--like the smiles of the others--lies, like the whole painting, between laughter and tears, lies in a double light, in a fissure between smiles and seriousness which--as the great Servant of Justice Hans E. Kinck says: "whispers of a man's soul in dissolution." Of the look, I would say, which sees behind reality, straight through matter which is itself in a state of dissolution. La joie de vivre is the most beautiful example I know of matter transformed, transubstantiated through spiritual chemistry: this is my body....
November 1, 2014
It's important, when people mention the narrator's multi-volume series "The History of Bestiality," to consider secondary definitions of the word "beastility." The expectation is that the narrator is compiling "protocols" regarding human beings doing it with animals: dogs, sheep, donkeys, cats, perhaps rats and monkeys, too. Alas, it's more about human beings behaving like beasts -- something more common than inter-species intercourse. Dashed bestiality-related expectations didn't disappoint me however because this first volume of a trilogy screws the pooch in the best possible way. Reminded me of Kozinski, an unreliable Sebald, maybe a dash of Bernhard (but more of "The Voice Imitator" -- the product of obsessive chronic newspaper clippings), and particularly Huysmans, if not decadent but a beatific drunk, a converted painter, a perceptive eye on a world marked by innocent civilians who transform into murderous cider-beserks after too long indulging a 10-quart habit, who rampage around town with grenades thanks to a peculiarly warm wind. It's hard to write about without cataloging its every movement, from the judge with the porno pics of the town's most respectable folks engaged in all sorts of sodomy, to Nazi genocide, Soviet genocide, American atomic genocide, to the catacombs of Rome, to brothels all over Europe. But it's not hateful -- it's not Bernhardian ranting -- there's love for beauty, for painting, for landscapes, for trees, sun, grass as Knausgaard says -- this is discussed in My Struggle vol 4 apparently and you can see the influence -- the attempt to get out of the way for once and write the truth. Love the unpredictable movement, how it improved as the narrator's history and terminology cohered. Loved that the few pages about the soft pastel light of Brooklyn and corn on the cob for sale -- about how great cities are nature in themselves -- I read as afternoon light was fading at a quiet dive bar on 4th Street off Avenue A. Odd that the few pages I read in NYC were about NYC of yore. An inspiring book -- the sort that makes you want to compile your own protocols. Will read the other two volumes as soon as they arrive.
March 13, 2025
FUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKK ME. I gonna need a think on this 'un.
February 23, 2015
This book is a fictional narrative.
The narrator has no name, or better he has forgotten his name, so let's just call him I.. I. is living in an alpine valley in the town of Heiligenberg and is working there as a court usher. From Heiligenberg I. leads us to different stages of his life, not necessarily in chronological order and with – as I. himself admits – huge gaps in his memory. He tells us about his time in Stockholm during WWII, his stay in Tuscany and visiting the Catacombs of Rome, about the battlefields of WWI+II, and (of course) about Germany: in a way everything evolves around the Teuto-Germania. Somewhere along his journey through the "Land Chaos" (as he calls it) I. starts to create journals, which will help him a) to remember and b) to write a twelve-volume history of bestiality later. One day I will begin to remember forward. His favorite places are cheep brothels in the respective towns; not to do what men are usually supposed to do there, but to just spend his nights – alone.
But it's not the description of journey through Europe, but also I.'s inner journey that makes this book stand out for me. I think I. is a deeply tormented soul. Time and again I. depicts bits and pieces of (human) bestiality he discovered and logged for his history. It's not like these are all too bloodily told. On the contrary. The tone is light, ironical, and in parts cynical. The funny parts (and there are few of them) hit my humor center right between the eyes. Paired with the consistently excellent prose (I read the German translation of the Norwegian original) the book develops a certain kind of undertow, I could hardly resist.
After reading the author's biography, I have to recognize that the initial statement is not quite correct. Maybe I. should have been J.? A provocative anarcho-nihilist (his own designation), who, due to depression and alcoholism, decided to put an end to his life at the age of 55, and thereby gaining his ultimate freedom, left us an unusual and thought-provoking book. Not everyone's cup of tea, I'm sure, but mine anyway. This was only part 1 of the Bestialities (written in 1967, the "Summer of Love"). Parts 2 and 3 are sitting on my bookshelf, already scraping their hooves.
[to Powderhouse; Book 2 in the History of Bestiality]
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
The narrator has no name, or better he has forgotten his name, so let's just call him I.. I. is living in an alpine valley in the town of Heiligenberg and is working there as a court usher. From Heiligenberg I. leads us to different stages of his life, not necessarily in chronological order and with – as I. himself admits – huge gaps in his memory. He tells us about his time in Stockholm during WWII, his stay in Tuscany and visiting the Catacombs of Rome, about the battlefields of WWI+II, and (of course) about Germany: in a way everything evolves around the Teuto-Germania. Somewhere along his journey through the "Land Chaos" (as he calls it) I. starts to create journals, which will help him a) to remember and b) to write a twelve-volume history of bestiality later. One day I will begin to remember forward. His favorite places are cheep brothels in the respective towns; not to do what men are usually supposed to do there, but to just spend his nights – alone.
But it's not the description of journey through Europe, but also I.'s inner journey that makes this book stand out for me. I think I. is a deeply tormented soul. Time and again I. depicts bits and pieces of (human) bestiality he discovered and logged for his history. It's not like these are all too bloodily told. On the contrary. The tone is light, ironical, and in parts cynical. The funny parts (and there are few of them) hit my humor center right between the eyes. Paired with the consistently excellent prose (I read the German translation of the Norwegian original) the book develops a certain kind of undertow, I could hardly resist.
After reading the author's biography, I have to recognize that the initial statement is not quite correct. Maybe I. should have been J.? A provocative anarcho-nihilist (his own designation), who, due to depression and alcoholism, decided to put an end to his life at the age of 55, and thereby gaining his ultimate freedom, left us an unusual and thought-provoking book. Not everyone's cup of tea, I'm sure, but mine anyway. This was only part 1 of the Bestialities (written in 1967, the "Summer of Love"). Parts 2 and 3 are sitting on my bookshelf, already scraping their hooves.
[to Powderhouse; Book 2 in the History of Bestiality]
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Read
February 10, 2015okay so I know this is kind of ridiculous to talk about this as a BURIED book ; but look, it’s got a still=shiny seal of certification!!! But, 252 ratings!? 19 reviews?!! Yes! But that’s today, not two years ago when SPADE=Wield’er Jonathan discovered the enticing Without a Stitch and the whole backstory about Bjørneboe jostling some censorious powers-which-were. The way we count this though is against the background of a reading public which is largely illiterate in the way of literature=in=translation (.7% annually of fiction/poetry). So most of those 252 ratings are by Norwegian readers. I assume. And prior to that unEARTH’ing two years ago, there were like TWO english language reviews -- and a book which is not read and a book which is not spoken about is BURIED. And, frankly, if you’ve been attentive to the pattern -- if one major work by an author is BURIED, they pretty much all are. So, right. BURIED. Then. Now -- less so. Thanks to some GREAT’readers!
At any rate, onto the thing about ME!! There were two moments when this ship almost sunk. The first was the fact that it’s yet another first person thing. You can probably list the long list of all those two hundred page novels with first person more/less despicable or deeply morally compromised narrators. Some people eat those things up! It’s always red=red flag for me. I think it was that hack Franzen who got it right when he maybe said something about don’t write in the first person unless you’ve got a first person character/narrator who’s reallyreally convincing. I’d add, unless you can keep that first person narrator from saying “I” which our Ms Young, for instance, does in a most fantastic manner. Otherwise, you’ve got an “I” sitting right there in front of you which will tempt you (you == author) to do all kinds of things which you are neither authorized nor justified in doing. Happens all the time. I don’t think it happened here at all. Like I said, it was a close call, but this Bjørneboe guy pulled it off. Pulled it off I think because this guy’s got a memory holed like swiss-cheese!
Also, you’ll see that this narrator/character is collecting the same kind of atrocity collection stuff that that guy in that one Gass novel is collecting. Also, you’ll see that this is yet another WWII/holocaust novel which I swear I had sworn off end of last year.
The other thing that almost wrecked this novel is that about toward the end it threatened to go all existentialist. And so much so that I almost skim=read to finish. But I didn’t. I noticed that the existentialist bloviation was within quotation marks. But, I can’t say for certain that the novel does anything explicit with the existentialist stuff, like parody it or travesty it. All I know is that it ducked that temptation. Always a temptation to go all existentialist, or at least psychologistic, whenever you’ve got that first-person narrator guy.
Enough about me. Read Bjørneboe. There remain for me two more Bestiality volumes, so I’m not really at all finished with this novel.
At any rate, onto the thing about ME!! There were two moments when this ship almost sunk. The first was the fact that it’s yet another first person thing. You can probably list the long list of all those two hundred page novels with first person more/less despicable or deeply morally compromised narrators. Some people eat those things up! It’s always red=red flag for me. I think it was that hack Franzen who got it right when he maybe said something about don’t write in the first person unless you’ve got a first person character/narrator who’s reallyreally convincing. I’d add, unless you can keep that first person narrator from saying “I” which our Ms Young, for instance, does in a most fantastic manner. Otherwise, you’ve got an “I” sitting right there in front of you which will tempt you (you == author) to do all kinds of things which you are neither authorized nor justified in doing. Happens all the time. I don’t think it happened here at all. Like I said, it was a close call, but this Bjørneboe guy pulled it off. Pulled it off I think because this guy’s got a memory holed like swiss-cheese!
Also, you’ll see that this narrator/character is collecting the same kind of atrocity collection stuff that that guy in that one Gass novel is collecting. Also, you’ll see that this is yet another WWII/holocaust novel which I swear I had sworn off end of last year.
The other thing that almost wrecked this novel is that about toward the end it threatened to go all existentialist. And so much so that I almost skim=read to finish. But I didn’t. I noticed that the existentialist bloviation was within quotation marks. But, I can’t say for certain that the novel does anything explicit with the existentialist stuff, like parody it or travesty it. All I know is that it ducked that temptation. Always a temptation to go all existentialist, or at least psychologistic, whenever you’ve got that first-person narrator guy.
Enough about me. Read Bjørneboe. There remain for me two more Bestiality volumes, so I’m not really at all finished with this novel.
June 30, 2016
This book is remarkably sad. Bjørneboe is nihilistic and depressing, but it's all so damn beautiful at the same time. Touching on the cruelties of the human species, it's hard not to share Bjørneboe's sentiments and his bitterness and his disappointment in humanity.
It's hard, too, not to feel sympathy for Bjørneboe. He tried to take his own life at 13 - and he described it as a perfectly executed hanging that somehow went wrong - and eventually he did end up taking his own life at 55.
There is this part of the book where the narrator talks about his father and his memories of him. He says that the last thing his father ever said to him was this: "You're a good kid Jens, but what on earth will become of you?" This is, incidentally, indeed the last thing Bjørneboe's father ever said to him.
It's hard, too, not to feel sympathy for Bjørneboe. He tried to take his own life at 13 - and he described it as a perfectly executed hanging that somehow went wrong - and eventually he did end up taking his own life at 55.
There is this part of the book where the narrator talks about his father and his memories of him. He says that the last thing his father ever said to him was this: "You're a good kid Jens, but what on earth will become of you?" This is, incidentally, indeed the last thing Bjørneboe's father ever said to him.
March 21, 2013
This was an amazing drunken ride, exploring myriad themes now familar with centures of Continental literature. Alienation abounds, the spirit suffers. That said, there remains a freshness to the horror, it is vivid beyond any category and narrative arc.
I had picked this up from the library and was then disconcerted to discover the trilogy is woefully out-of-print and rather difficult to locate.
I had picked this up from the library and was then disconcerted to discover the trilogy is woefully out-of-print and rather difficult to locate.
October 17, 2020
Er wohnt in Bordellen, treibt sich in Spelunken herum oder führt Touristen durch die römischen Katakomben. Er erzählt von Elend und Zerstörung, von Ignoranz, Niedertracht und der Freude der "kleinen Bären" an der Grausamkeit. Seine Depressionen betäubt er mit großen Mengen von Alkohol. Als er sich als Gerichtsdiener in einer alpinen Kleinstadt zur Ruhe setzt, beginnt er an einem Protokoll menschlicher Barbarei zu schreiben. Erst sein bitterböser Humor und Sarkasmus machen die Lektüre erträglich und zu einem Wechselbad der Gefühle zwischen Grauen und Lachen.
In dem Augenblick, in dem man die Welt ganz ernst nimmt, ist man potentiell geisteskrank. Die ganze Kunst, zu lernen, wie man sich am Leben erhält, liegt darin, daß man am Lachen festhält; ohne Lachen ist die Welt eine Folterkammer, eine dunkle Stätte, in der dunkle Dinge mit uns geschehen, eine Schreckenskammer blutiger Gewaltakte.
Der Band ist der erste Teil der dreiteiligen »Geschichte der menschlichen Bestialität«, ein bemerkenswertes und bewegendes Dokument eines literarischen Einzelgängers und Wahrheitssuchers.
In dem Augenblick, in dem man die Welt ganz ernst nimmt, ist man potentiell geisteskrank. Die ganze Kunst, zu lernen, wie man sich am Leben erhält, liegt darin, daß man am Lachen festhält; ohne Lachen ist die Welt eine Folterkammer, eine dunkle Stätte, in der dunkle Dinge mit uns geschehen, eine Schreckenskammer blutiger Gewaltakte.
Der Band ist der erste Teil der dreiteiligen »Geschichte der menschlichen Bestialität«, ein bemerkenswertes und bewegendes Dokument eines literarischen Einzelgängers und Wahrheitssuchers.
May 19, 2022
čitanje heiligenberškog rukopisa zapravo je suočavanje s ljudskim zlom. izvrstan jens bjørneboe kroz trilogiju "povijest bestijalnosti" (heiligenberški rukopis prvi je dio trilogije; u drugom će se baviti zločinima Crkve, a u posljednjem kolonijalizmom i genocidima) razmatrat će različite oblike zla koje je, očito, neraskidivo s pojmom čovjeka kao takvog.
i sam tragičnog života -alkoholičar od svoje 12. godine, prvi pokušaj samoubojstva u 14.; cijeli život borio se s depresijom i alkoholizmom i naposljetku si u 56. godini presudio vješanjem- njegovo pismo jasan je odraz ne samo vlastitog duševnog stanja, već i nemio i bolan podsjetnik na opakost svijeta u kojem živimo. izuzetno poetičan, često i sarkastičan (kao... što nam drugo preostaje, nego nalaziti humora u trpljenju?), mjestimice brutalan u opisima prizora zla koja je ljudska vrsta u stanju činiti jedni drugima, a cijelo vrijeme, svakom rečenicom, human i suosjećajan. izuzetan autor kojeg se premalo čita... a mogu i razumjeti zašto: sa svakom okrenutom stranicom, entuzijazam prema životu opada, a vjera u ljudski rod biva poljuljana. malo kome odgovara pristati na taj kompromis; idealističnu ideju života ustupiti kvalitetnom, ali tragičnom tekstu.
i sam tragičnog života -alkoholičar od svoje 12. godine, prvi pokušaj samoubojstva u 14.; cijeli život borio se s depresijom i alkoholizmom i naposljetku si u 56. godini presudio vješanjem- njegovo pismo jasan je odraz ne samo vlastitog duševnog stanja, već i nemio i bolan podsjetnik na opakost svijeta u kojem živimo. izuzetno poetičan, često i sarkastičan (kao... što nam drugo preostaje, nego nalaziti humora u trpljenju?), mjestimice brutalan u opisima prizora zla koja je ljudska vrsta u stanju činiti jedni drugima, a cijelo vrijeme, svakom rečenicom, human i suosjećajan. izuzetan autor kojeg se premalo čita... a mogu i razumjeti zašto: sa svakom okrenutom stranicom, entuzijazam prema životu opada, a vjera u ljudski rod biva poljuljana. malo kome odgovara pristati na taj kompromis; idealističnu ideju života ustupiti kvalitetnom, ali tragičnom tekstu.
April 5, 2025
2.5* Ten autor nie jest dla mnie. Czytało mi się to tak topornie, aż wpadłam w zastój czytelniczy. Dokończyłam czytać dla kilku ciekawostek historycznych i społecznych.
April 28, 2013
this is an interesting novel by a norwegian writer that i had never heard of, but discovered while browsing through goodreads, as i often do. it's the first book in a trilogy in which the narrator is writing the history of bestiality in which he collects newspaper clippings, articles, photos etc. of man's inhumanity to man, of which there is a pretty much endless supply.
unfortunately, there is really very little about this project in the novel, it is only mentioned in passing a few times. instead, the book is mainly a monolgue on the narrator's life and travels, with large parts dealing with his alcoholism and depression. it's obviously an autobiographical novel, as Bjorneboe spent most of his life dealing with those two issues, and in fact, committed suicide by hanging when he was only 56.
in any event, it's a very interesting and well written novel, and i look forward to reading the other two in the trilogy, providing i can find them, that is.
unfortunately, there is really very little about this project in the novel, it is only mentioned in passing a few times. instead, the book is mainly a monolgue on the narrator's life and travels, with large parts dealing with his alcoholism and depression. it's obviously an autobiographical novel, as Bjorneboe spent most of his life dealing with those two issues, and in fact, committed suicide by hanging when he was only 56.
in any event, it's a very interesting and well written novel, and i look forward to reading the other two in the trilogy, providing i can find them, that is.
October 1, 2024
Свет као невоља и “соба за мучење” оцртан скандинавском једноставношћу, фактички, хладно и фрагментарно имитирајући манир сећања. Слобода је прихватање небитности сопства и постиже се самоубиством, зато што постојати значи бити омеђен утицајима. Најбоља употреба људи је да сопственим телима ђубре земљиште за будућу шуму.
August 21, 2014
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 22, 2019
‘Moment of Freedom’ is certainly not an easy read. It’s a sprawling mess, but a mess that does explore the decay of humanity, its inherent evil, and its inclination to violence. Yeah, there were a lot of interesting things within, but it was a constant struggle for me to keep going. It is written in a style that belongs somewhere in the 1960s and 1970s, a time when being obscure was always seen as a positive. I won’t be going on to the second part of ‘The History of Bestiality’. One was enough.
March 31, 2021
Доказ да је понекад заиста потребно преиспитивати класике. Јенс Бјернебуе се третира као класик норвешке књижевности. Додуше, "Тренутак слободе" (издавач Дерета) представља само први део трилогије "Историја бестијалности", али нисам сигуран да ћу прочитати сва три дела.
Мора се признати да је аутор храбар и да смело износи критику друштава на Западу непосредно после Другог светског рата. У роману се помињу многе контроверзне одлуке ратних победника као што су на пример бацање атомске бомбе на Хирошиму или вештачки изазвано оснаживање немачке марке. Такође, Бјернебуе приказује универзалну природу људске врсте, односно, њену тамну страну што би била, може се рећи, и главна тема Тренутка слободе.
Међутим, иако овај роман има тему која представља "зицер" за читаоце као што сам ја, морам признати да сам разочаран. Ништа у овом роману није изведено до краја. На почетку романа затичемо главног јунака у малом алпском градићу Хајлигенбергу где ради као судски послужитељ и живи мирним и рекли бисмо: животом медиокритета. Јунак пати од селективне амнезије и један део наратива бави се реконструкцијом његовог живота. Он наилази на компромитујуће слике главног судије и многих угледних грађана који учествују у оргијама, али не знамо шта касније бива с тим сликама зато што се аутор више тиме неће бавити. Затим крећемо на пропутовања која су умногоме обликовала главног јунака. Ово су можда и најбољи делови романа (штета је што од ових делова није настао један солидни on the road роман чиме би се добила чвршћа композиција). Крај романа нас враћа на почетак, у Хајлигенберг, где јунак седи у крчми са својим малобројним пријатељима.
У роману се могу пронаћи квалитетни есејистички пасуси, али су и проблематични зато што се често "боре" са фабулом око превласти.
Све у свему, не препоручујем читалачким сладокусцима, али бих га свакако препоручио људима који пишу - нека уче на туђим грешкама.
Мора се признати да је аутор храбар и да смело износи критику друштава на Западу непосредно после Другог светског рата. У роману се помињу многе контроверзне одлуке ратних победника као што су на пример бацање атомске бомбе на Хирошиму или вештачки изазвано оснаживање немачке марке. Такође, Бјернебуе приказује универзалну природу људске врсте, односно, њену тамну страну што би била, може се рећи, и главна тема Тренутка слободе.
Међутим, иако овај роман има тему која представља "зицер" за читаоце као што сам ја, морам признати да сам разочаран. Ништа у овом роману није изведено до краја. На почетку романа затичемо главног јунака у малом алпском градићу Хајлигенбергу где ради као судски послужитељ и живи мирним и рекли бисмо: животом медиокритета. Јунак пати од селективне амнезије и један део наратива бави се реконструкцијом његовог живота. Он наилази на компромитујуће слике главног судије и многих угледних грађана који учествују у оргијама, али не знамо шта касније бива с тим сликама зато што се аутор више тиме неће бавити. Затим крећемо на пропутовања која су умногоме обликовала главног јунака. Ово су можда и најбољи делови романа (штета је што од ових делова није настао један солидни on the road роман чиме би се добила чвршћа композиција). Крај романа нас враћа на почетак, у Хајлигенберг, где јунак седи у крчми са својим малобројним пријатељима.
У роману се могу пронаћи квалитетни есејистички пасуси, али су и проблематични зато што се често "боре" са фабулом око превласти.
Све у свему, не препоручујем читалачким сладокусцима, али бих га свакако препоручио људима који пишу - нека уче на туђим грешкама.
September 8, 2015
"Power, which is the only existing principle, means only one thing: The ability to make other people suffer".
(...)
"Authority claims to be legitimate. The law claims to be just. The powers that be claim to represent freedom - because freedom means to realize the necessity of bowing before power".
It's a wonder Bjørneboe managed to hang on until the age of 55 before killing himself. His life seems to be a tragic story of a man of great sensitivity who roams the world, observing its cruelty, while trying (and failing) to make sense of it all. At one point he almost admiringly starts talking about how the Renaissance painters managed to depict different forms of torture and grotesque deaths with a seemingly cold distance. This is according to Bjørneboe, if I understand him correctly, the only way to cope with the way the little bears treat each other. Given how it ended for Bjørneboe himself, I can only assume that he wasn't able to distance himself in this way, or if he did, didn't find it satisfactory.
I don't how the English translation is, but he writes beautifully in Norwegian. The quotes above (and underneath) are my own lazy translations, and I hope I don't distort their original meaning too much.
*******
He also has some less than flattering thoughts on Germans...and so did his father:
(...)
"Authority claims to be legitimate. The law claims to be just. The powers that be claim to represent freedom - because freedom means to realize the necessity of bowing before power".
It's a wonder Bjørneboe managed to hang on until the age of 55 before killing himself. His life seems to be a tragic story of a man of great sensitivity who roams the world, observing its cruelty, while trying (and failing) to make sense of it all. At one point he almost admiringly starts talking about how the Renaissance painters managed to depict different forms of torture and grotesque deaths with a seemingly cold distance. This is according to Bjørneboe, if I understand him correctly, the only way to cope with the way the little bears treat each other. Given how it ended for Bjørneboe himself, I can only assume that he wasn't able to distance himself in this way, or if he did, didn't find it satisfactory.
I don't how the English translation is, but he writes beautifully in Norwegian. The quotes above (and underneath) are my own lazy translations, and I hope I don't distort their original meaning too much.
*******
He also has some less than flattering thoughts on Germans...and so did his father:
"He despised Germans with an almost pathological and congenital disgust.
(...)
What disturbed him the most about them wasn't their cruelty, but their unlimited greed, their senseless haben-haben mentality, and their lust for other peoples's food, money, land, women, paired with their quaint and moralizing holier-than-thou complacency.
(...)
The countrymen of Mozart are in themselves no more evil or brutal than other ethnic groups - a point I wish to underline throughout my work - but they are tormented by their own greed for things, food and money to such an extent that they deem it their inalienable right to exterminate entire groups of people only to satisfy their natural hunger for other people's things.
(...)
They want food, insurmountable mountains of food. They want to eat the world, and to eat the world they must have all the money and all the things, all the cars and fur coats on the earth. The world is my breakfast."
November 27, 2007
part 1 of the so-called history of beastiality trilogy by jens bjørneboe, a somewhat obscure norwegian writer, painter, and social critic. out of print (i believe), but well worth tracking down.
January 28, 2021
here's an impassioned and despairing post war european novel all about the horrors of the 20th century that will probably make you feel depressed like all great european novels should. i wasn't quite as wowed by the sentences and overall structure as i thought i might be but it's still good stuff and should be much more widely read than it is.
December 20, 2024
Nierówno mi się przez to szło, ale za takie właśnie odkrycia Cymelia pozostaje ulubioną serią wydawniczą. Wiwisekcja przemocy i brutalności, nie dla satysfakcji, ale dla głębszej refleksji o tym, do czego zdolny jest człowiek.
October 3, 2022
N2/2022
ცალკეულ წიგნებს და მათთან ჩვენს ურთიერთობას აქვს საკუთარი ისტორია. ეს ისტორია, მსგავსად სხვა ურთიერთობებისა, არის სიხარულის, განშორების, მწუხარების, დაბრუნების და ა.შ. მაგალითად მე კარგად მახსოვს, რომ ბიორნებუს ეს წიგნი პირველი კურსის შემოდგომაზე გავიცანი. გავაცდინე საქართველოს ისტორიის სავალდებულო შესავალი კურსი და მზიურში დავიწყე კითხვა (მზიური იყო ჩემი და ჩემი მეგობრების საყვარელი თავშეყრის ადგილი ვერეს ადიდებამდე და მერე რეაბილიტაციამდე). ხშირად უბრალოდ ვარჩევ ხოლმე წიგნს ისე, რომ არაფერი ვიცი ავტორზე, ე.ი. შანსს ვაძლევ და ხშირად მიმართლებს (რასაც სხვა შემთხვევებზე ნამდვილად ვერ ვიტყვი). ჰოდა, მაშინათვე მივხვდი, რომ ეს ჩემი წიგნი იყო მთელი თავისი გერმანოფილიით, ნიცშეთი, ნიჰილიზმით, პესიმიზმით, ალკოჰოლიზმით, თვითირონიით, მეთოდოლოგიური ცინიზმით, დესტრუქციით და ამასთანავე საოცარი მხატვრულობით (ბიორნბო ხომ მხატვარიც იყო). ჩემს სამეგრობროში ზოგს ვაჩუქე მაშინ ეს წიგნი და ზოგსაც ვაყიდინე.
ახლა მივუბრუნდი 10 წლის შემდეგ და როგორც თავში ვთქვი, სხვა სახის ურთიერთობებისა არ იყოს, ასეთი მიბრუნებები სახიფათოა. ზოგჯერ აღმოაჩენ, რომ რაც უწინ აღგაფრთოვანებდა, ახლა აღარაფერს ნიშნავს, შეიცვალე და შენს ცვლილებასთან ერთად წიგნიც შეიცვალა -მაშასადამე შეხვედრა აღარ დგება. ამ შემთხვევაში პირიქითაა, ვხვდები როგორც ძველ, ბებერ მეგობარს და ახლა უკეთ მესმის მისი, როცა მსოფლიოში ომია და პატარა დათვები ისევ ერთმანეთს ხოცავენ (იგივე მეთოდებითა და სახასიათო ნაკლებობით ფანტაზიისა), როცა ასაკი თანდათან შთანთქავს იდეალიზმის უკანასკნელ ნარჩენებს და ნიჰილიზმი და მეთოდოლოგიური ცინიზმი ყვავილობს. მაშ ახლა თამამად შემიძლია ვუთხრა, რომ საერთო გვაქვს ტევტონიით და მისი დიდი შეშლილებით გატაცება და მოყირჭებულობა ყველაფრით, პატარა დათვების რუტინული სისასტიკის ყურებით. 10 წლის შემდეგ, თუ ცოცხალი ვიქნები, კიდევ ერთხელ წავიკითხავ.
"ასევე ლითონისაა დანტეს ტოპოგრაფიული კავშირები ჯოჯოხეტიდან, სადაც იგი გვიყვება (და ეს ეკლესიურ სწავლებებს შეესატყვისება), რომ ჯოჯოხეთში ტალახისა და გოგირდის საზიზღარი გუბე ელოდება მათ, ვინც მელანქოლიაშია დანთქმული. "ჩვენ თავი ჩავქინდრეთ ამ რბილ ჰაერში, მზეს რომ შეჰხარის! და ამას ჩვენ ჯოჯოხეთში ვზღავთ." ნუთუ დანტემ არ იცოდა, რომ სისხლისა და ქაქის იმ წებოვანი, ტალახიანი გუბის აღწერით გვაძლევდა ზუსტ აღწერილობას მელანქოლიისთვის მოვლენილი სასჯელისა ამ მიწაზე და ამ წუთში? არა, შეუძლებელია. მას უდავოდ ეცოდინებოდა, რომ სასოწარკვეთა, მელანქოლია ან დეპრესია თვითონვეა სუბსტანცია - ხრწნადი, მწებვარე, აქოთებული მატერია შერეული სისხლთან, რომელშიც ადამიანი მუხლამდე მიაბიჯებს. ასევე, დროც სუბსტანციაა, წებოვანი და მძიმედ დენადი."
" თვით ჯვარცმულიც რომ შემხვდეს ქუჩაში, არც მაშინ ავწევდი თავს და არ გავყვებოდი. არაფერი არსებობს სისხლისა და სიბნელის ამ საუფლოში, ჩემ გარდა."
N1/2012
just amazing book
ცალკეულ წიგნებს და მათთან ჩვენს ურთიერთობას აქვს საკუთარი ისტორია. ეს ისტორია, მსგავსად სხვა ურთიერთობებისა, არის სიხარულის, განშორების, მწუხარების, დაბრუნების და ა.შ. მაგალითად მე კარგად მახსოვს, რომ ბიორნებუს ეს წიგნი პირველი კურსის შემოდგომაზე გავიცანი. გავაცდინე საქართველოს ისტორიის სავალდებულო შესავალი კურსი და მზიურში დავიწყე კითხვა (მზიური იყო ჩემი და ჩემი მეგობრების საყვარელი თავშეყრის ადგილი ვერეს ადიდებამდე და მერე რეაბილიტაციამდე). ხშირად უბრალოდ ვარჩევ ხოლმე წიგნს ისე, რომ არაფერი ვიცი ავტორზე, ე.ი. შანსს ვაძლევ და ხშირად მიმართლებს (რასაც სხვა შემთხვევებზე ნამდვილად ვერ ვიტყვი). ჰოდა, მაშინათვე მივხვდი, რომ ეს ჩემი წიგნი იყო მთელი თავისი გერმანოფილიით, ნიცშეთი, ნიჰილიზმით, პესიმიზმით, ალკოჰოლიზმით, თვითირონიით, მეთოდოლოგიური ცინიზმით, დესტრუქციით და ამასთანავე საოცარი მხატვრულობით (ბიორნბო ხომ მხატვარიც იყო). ჩემს სამეგრობროში ზოგს ვაჩუქე მაშინ ეს წიგნი და ზოგსაც ვაყიდინე.
ახლა მივუბრუნდი 10 წლის შემდეგ და როგორც თავში ვთქვი, სხვა სახის ურთიერთობებისა არ იყოს, ასეთი მიბრუნებები სახიფათოა. ზოგჯერ აღმოაჩენ, რომ რაც უწინ აღგაფრთოვანებდა, ახლა აღარაფერს ნიშნავს, შეიცვალე და შენს ცვლილებასთან ერთად წიგნიც შეიცვალა -მაშასადამე შეხვედრა აღარ დგება. ამ შემთხვევაში პირიქითაა, ვხვდები როგორც ძველ, ბებერ მეგობარს და ახლა უკეთ მესმის მისი, როცა მსოფლიოში ომია და პატარა დათვები ისევ ერთმანეთს ხოცავენ (იგივე მეთოდებითა და სახასიათო ნაკლებობით ფანტაზიისა), როცა ასაკი თანდათან შთანთქავს იდეალიზმის უკანასკნელ ნარჩენებს და ნიჰილიზმი და მეთოდოლოგიური ცინიზმი ყვავილობს. მაშ ახლა თამამად შემიძლია ვუთხრა, რომ საერთო გვაქვს ტევტონიით და მისი დიდი შეშლილებით გატაცება და მოყირჭებულობა ყველაფრით, პატარა დათვების რუტინული სისასტიკის ყურებით. 10 წლის შემდეგ, თუ ცოცხალი ვიქნები, კიდევ ერთხელ წავიკითხავ.
"ასევე ლითონისაა დანტეს ტოპოგრაფიული კავშირები ჯოჯოხეტიდან, სადაც იგი გვიყვება (და ეს ეკლესიურ სწავლებებს შეესატყვისება), რომ ჯოჯოხეთში ტალახისა და გოგირდის საზიზღარი გუბე ელოდება მათ, ვინც მელანქოლიაშია დანთქმული. "ჩვენ თავი ჩავქინდრეთ ამ რბილ ჰაერში, მზეს რომ შეჰხარის! და ამას ჩვენ ჯოჯოხეთში ვზღავთ." ნუთუ დანტემ არ იცოდა, რომ სისხლისა და ქაქის იმ წებოვანი, ტალახიანი გუბის აღწერით გვაძლევდა ზუსტ აღწერილობას მელანქოლიისთვის მოვლენილი სასჯელისა ამ მიწაზე და ამ წუთში? არა, შეუძლებელია. მას უდავოდ ეცოდინებოდა, რომ სასოწარკვეთა, მელანქოლია ან დეპრესია თვითონვეა სუბსტანცია - ხრწნადი, მწებვარე, აქოთებული მატერია შერეული სისხლთან, რომელშიც ადამიანი მუხლამდე მიაბიჯებს. ასევე, დროც სუბსტანციაა, წებოვანი და მძიმედ დენადი."
" თვით ჯვარცმულიც რომ შემხვდეს ქუჩაში, არც მაშინ ავწევდი თავს და არ გავყვებოდი. არაფერი არსებობს სისხლისა და სიბნელის ამ საუფლოში, ჩემ გარდა."
N1/2012
just amazing book
December 4, 2021
Once you've been reading for a while, it's difficult to walk into a book completely blind...you've heard a lazy comparison of the writer to somebody else, or a blurb and while they ARE lazy they might be a shred of truth to them..."well, goddamn it's not Kakfka but I guess I get the dumb fucking comparison...' or somebody's bugged you to read one of their favorite writers and said 'you'll love it, it's right up your alley blah blah blah and that's why!" This book: nothing. Norwegian, suicide, that's it, that's all I knew. he's not talked about much; I know of one person that worships him and that's it. He didn't tell me whe\y he held him so high (I thank him!)
Book is perfect. fucking funny. dark as tar. bleak. but it's got a buoyancy , it's still that you're (you are. the reader is) being taken into confidence with the book, a co-conspirator....the book floored me! seriously fucking floored me. I hope somebody sees this and hunts it down. I could say it had a bit of ________ and a dash of________ to get somebody to buy in...but I won't, don't want to. READ! it's only 230 pages, take a few hours and check this out. fuck. I'm just happy to find this and know I've got. new writer to read and live with for a while...joy in that, eh?
Book is perfect. fucking funny. dark as tar. bleak. but it's got a buoyancy , it's still that you're (you are. the reader is) being taken into confidence with the book, a co-conspirator....the book floored me! seriously fucking floored me. I hope somebody sees this and hunts it down. I could say it had a bit of ________ and a dash of________ to get somebody to buy in...but I won't, don't want to. READ! it's only 230 pages, take a few hours and check this out. fuck. I'm just happy to find this and know I've got. new writer to read and live with for a while...joy in that, eh?
August 10, 2019
''Trenutak slobode'' prvi je dio trilogije ''Istorija bestijalnosti'' norveškog književnika Jensa Bjernebuea.
U njemu upoznajemo bezimenog sudskog poslužitelja, koji ne može da se sjeti svog imena, i koji trenutno boravi u malom alpskom gradu Hajligenbergu.
''Trenutak slobode'' podijeljen je na tri dijela: Gradovi, Prajanski papiri i Lemurija, a svaki od njih čine različiti događaji ispričani iz prvog lica, gore pomenutog, nepoznatog čovjeka.
Duboko mizantropičan, bez porodice i sa rupama u pamćenju, narator nas vodi na tjeskobni put evropskog društva, pa i njega samog, u periodu dva svjetska rata. Njegove misli su zabilježene u takozvanim Protokolima, te saznajemo nasumične dijelove, poput onih o Njemačkoj u Prvom svjetskom ratu, naratorovim lutanjima Evropom, od Skandinavije do juga Italije, a zatim nazad do Berlina i Švajcarske.
On pripovijeda o propadanju ljudske vrste, njenoj iskonskoj zlobi i sklonosti ka nasilju, o neminovnom uništenju najavljenom događajima iz Drugog svjetskog rata - rađanja nacističke Njemačke i konačno stvaranja atomske bombe.
Na pojedinim mjestima ovo djelo je izuzezno teško za pratiti, što se posebno odnosi na dijelove koji govore o umjetnosti (slikama pogubljenja, rimskim katakombama), kao i na opise strahota rata i posljedica proteka vremena na tijela poginulih vojnika.
Ipak, cjelokupan pesimizam sa nalazi u službi humanosti, koju prepoznajemo iz sporadičnih događaja obavijenih humorom, zbog koje prvi dio trilogije ne završava u potpunom mraku, već daje nadu da je za čovjeka negdje ostao tračak svjetlosti.
''Postoje ipak ljudi koji zgrabe slobodu, koji se ne dvoume, ne oklevaju - nego prihvataju sebe kao svoje i kao merilo svega ostalog, i ne pokazuju strah. U nekim slučajevima to su ljudi koji su dovoljno jaki da to mogu da urade i po prirodi su dovoljno mudri da razumeju kolika je cena. U drugim slučajevima to su ljudi koji ne znaju šta rade, koji biraju slobodu iz neznanja i nedostatka razumevanja - oni ne znaju ni za kakvu cenu i zbog toga su uništeni kad dođe vreme naplate. Izabrati da razmišljaš sam kad nisi u stanju da misliš znači uništenje.''
U njemu upoznajemo bezimenog sudskog poslužitelja, koji ne može da se sjeti svog imena, i koji trenutno boravi u malom alpskom gradu Hajligenbergu.
''Trenutak slobode'' podijeljen je na tri dijela: Gradovi, Prajanski papiri i Lemurija, a svaki od njih čine različiti događaji ispričani iz prvog lica, gore pomenutog, nepoznatog čovjeka.
Duboko mizantropičan, bez porodice i sa rupama u pamćenju, narator nas vodi na tjeskobni put evropskog društva, pa i njega samog, u periodu dva svjetska rata. Njegove misli su zabilježene u takozvanim Protokolima, te saznajemo nasumične dijelove, poput onih o Njemačkoj u Prvom svjetskom ratu, naratorovim lutanjima Evropom, od Skandinavije do juga Italije, a zatim nazad do Berlina i Švajcarske.
On pripovijeda o propadanju ljudske vrste, njenoj iskonskoj zlobi i sklonosti ka nasilju, o neminovnom uništenju najavljenom događajima iz Drugog svjetskog rata - rađanja nacističke Njemačke i konačno stvaranja atomske bombe.
Na pojedinim mjestima ovo djelo je izuzezno teško za pratiti, što se posebno odnosi na dijelove koji govore o umjetnosti (slikama pogubljenja, rimskim katakombama), kao i na opise strahota rata i posljedica proteka vremena na tijela poginulih vojnika.
Ipak, cjelokupan pesimizam sa nalazi u službi humanosti, koju prepoznajemo iz sporadičnih događaja obavijenih humorom, zbog koje prvi dio trilogije ne završava u potpunom mraku, već daje nadu da je za čovjeka negdje ostao tračak svjetlosti.
''Postoje ipak ljudi koji zgrabe slobodu, koji se ne dvoume, ne oklevaju - nego prihvataju sebe kao svoje i kao merilo svega ostalog, i ne pokazuju strah. U nekim slučajevima to su ljudi koji su dovoljno jaki da to mogu da urade i po prirodi su dovoljno mudri da razumeju kolika je cena. U drugim slučajevima to su ljudi koji ne znaju šta rade, koji biraju slobodu iz neznanja i nedostatka razumevanja - oni ne znaju ni za kakvu cenu i zbog toga su uništeni kad dođe vreme naplate. Izabrati da razmišljaš sam kad nisi u stanju da misliš znači uništenje.''
April 29, 2025
,,Danas kad pomislim, čudim se kako sam šetao po Stokholmu i slikao žardinjere, jabuke i pejzaže dok je svet oko mene ključao: otkrivao se zastrašujuće jasno kao mešavina nužnika i sobe za mučenje, što i jeste bio. A moje sopstvene unutrašnje slike sveta takođe su bile apokalipsa; dobro sam znao da je svet krematorijum”.
February 24, 2024
"De ergste föhnmaanden komen nog."
Een naamloze gerechtsbode zit ergens in een klein Alpendorp te werken aan zijn teksten, zijn protocollen, de "geschiedenis van de bestialiteit", waarin hij het gruwelijke gedrag van de doodgewone mens, de "beertjes", in kaart wil brengen. Hij graaft in zijn eigen verleden op zoek naar voorbeelden van dat geweld én op zoek naar zijn eigen naam en identiteit. "Het ogenblik van de vrijheid" bevestigt mijn theorie dat de meeste auteurs geïnspireerd door Sartre betere boeken hebben geschreven dan Sartre. Serieus de moeite! 4.75/5.
"Berlijn heeft de oorlog in het gezicht, in het vlees zitten."
"Het gaf mij een gevoel van leven en genezing, maar zoals zo veel medicamenten kon de kuur elementen inhouden van verslaving en immoraliteit, van narcomanie."
Een naamloze gerechtsbode zit ergens in een klein Alpendorp te werken aan zijn teksten, zijn protocollen, de "geschiedenis van de bestialiteit", waarin hij het gruwelijke gedrag van de doodgewone mens, de "beertjes", in kaart wil brengen. Hij graaft in zijn eigen verleden op zoek naar voorbeelden van dat geweld én op zoek naar zijn eigen naam en identiteit. "Het ogenblik van de vrijheid" bevestigt mijn theorie dat de meeste auteurs geïnspireerd door Sartre betere boeken hebben geschreven dan Sartre. Serieus de moeite! 4.75/5.
"Berlijn heeft de oorlog in het gezicht, in het vlees zitten."
"Het gaf mij een gevoel van leven en genezing, maar zoals zo veel medicamenten kon de kuur elementen inhouden van verslaving en immoraliteit, van narcomanie."
May 13, 2019
Eh, conflicting feelings about this one. Great prose and some good points, but I just don't like experimental/stream of consciousness approach. After my initial like for the book it fast became tedious and hard read for me, so I dropped the reading at some point, returning to it 6 months later. Well, my impression didn't change - I don't consider the book bad, but it's simply not my cup of tea.
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