I Curse the River of Time by Per Petterson

To be a citizen of Per Petterson's Norway is to be a stranger to yourself; your nine-year-old self walks shoulder-to-shoulder with your 37-year-old self, who in turn remembers what it was to be 22. As a result, the eternal question of "Who am I?" is doubled, folded, and refracted into "Which I exactly am I?"

Petterson's 2003 breakout novel Out Stealing Horses is relatively straightforward. At age 67 Trond Sander, retired and living in a sparsely populated corner of the country, is trying to come to terms with a childhood trauma that has haunted him for more than five decades. The persistence of that event in Sander's life (and the trouble it causes him) seeps into the water, dirt, trees, and air around him; the muted colors and winter barrenness of the landscape become the stage for his memory play. His daughter Ellen has no such access. She visits him and tries to understand what it is that has driven him back into himself.

Petterson's masterly new novel, I Curse the River of Time, might be thought of as a sort of companion piece. Not only does it reside at the same juncture of identity, memory, and time, but it also mirrors Out Stealing Horses's narrative structure. This time, however, a child's confusion with a parent's distance is the center of the story.

Three major parts of Arvid Jansen's life are drawing to a close. His marriage is ending. The Berlin wall is coming down, along with the left-wing idealism of his youth. And his mother is dying. The failure of this triad has sent him into an existential tailspin, and he is left wondering how his life ended up in such tatters. What Arvid doesn't see, but that Petterson allows us to see, is that Arvid is not, to borrow from the opening sentence of David Copperfield, the hero of his own life.

No, I Curse the River of Time, is the story of how one tragedy in his mother's life echoed across Arvid's. Though perhaps, given the novel's title, derived from a poem by Mao, "echoing" is the wrong metaphor. The river-as-time construction does to a degree capture the particular causality of Arvid's life — because of cataracts upstream, he is subject to turbulence beyond his control or ken. In turn, his own daughters' lives will be shaped by how he deals with his estrangement from his mother.

If we live long enough, it seems we will all eventually find ourselves in Arvid's position, struggling to understand how things for which we so ardently hoped have collapsed and why people so important to us have left. How will we deal with that realization? How will we, if we can, come to terms with our insufficiency and not be crushed by it?

Petterson's great gift to us here is to show us the cost of this kind of despair. Arvid thinks that he has some "flaw, some crack in the foundation of his character" that has caused him to be something other than what he had hoped, but it is only his mourning for an idea of himself that prevents him from living in full:

"Now comes what you have always feared, and you suddenly realise that every chance of being the person you really wanted to be is gone forever, and the one you were, is the one that those around you will remember. Then that must feel like someone's strong hands slowly tightening their grip around your neck until you can breathe no more." 

Some are foolish enough to claim they have no regrets, but most of us know that is delusion. Petterson challenges us to acknowledge both our frailty and our folly while not flinching at them, to value not what we had hoped for, but what we have saved.
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This review references an advance copy; the final published version may have minor changes.

I Curse the River of Time will be available starting August 3, 2010.

This article first published as Book Review: I Curse the River of Time by Per Petterson on Blogcritics.

Ask the Ape: Family Drama Edition

It’s time for another edition of Ask the Ape. This week’s question comes from the comments after the last installment:

Dear Ape-
I reread A River Runs Through It this time every year. I plan to get this year's read in tomorrow on the airplane. I'm looking for an autobiographical read of similar nature... but not A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, which is my favorite example of self-indulgence. Montana is not a prerequisite. Thoughtful exploration of why the people closest to us baffle us the most may be a great theme.

                                                                -Clinton

Man, A River Runs Through It is great. Not only is it stunningly beautiful as a book, but the film is equally satisfying. On to the question, though. Well, the Ape doesn’t read much autobiography—quite by design. But here are a few choices similar in tone and/or theme to A River Runs Through It that might fit the bill.

East of Eden by John Steinbeck

One of a handful of finalists for the Ape’s Favorite Novel Award. It’s a family history set between the Civil War and World War I, revolving around two generations of brothers. It does have an autobiographical element; one of the characters is based on Steinbeck’s maternal grandfather. It also has a killer ending; for our money more resonant, and much less squirm-inducing, than his famous ending to The  Grapes of Wrath. Initial reaction to the novel was tepid with many critics decrying Steinbeck's symbolism as heavy-handed, but in recent years East of Eden has matched, and perhaps even surpassed, The Grapes of Wrath on the Steinbeck depth chart. The Ape heartily approves of this development. 

Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson

You might think a novel about an old man’s reminiscences of the Norwegian logging industry could be a wee bit dry, but you’d be wrong. I have no way of evaluating the translation into English, but if the English version is any indication of Petterson’s ability, herring-boy has some serious game. It’s precisely the sparseness and melancholy of the narration that elevates the now overused Traumatic-Childhood-Event-Has-Haunted-Protagonist-His-Whole-Life formula into a beautiful and stunning portrait of loneliness and loss. Another one about brothers. Detect a theme here?

Beyond the Bedroom Wall by Larry Woiwode

Time for something a little obscure (and sadly out of print, though it looks like used copies are inexpensive).  Here we have another family saga centered around brothers, this time in small Midwestern towns, first in North Dakota and then in Illinois. Where East of Eden is sweeping and symbolic, Beyond the Bedroom Wall is subtle and specific; the central brothers here, the narrator and his older brother, seem more realistic than the iconic figures in East of Eden.  Woiwode is also a poet, and his attention to the quiet specific gives the novel a structure of feeling that is as rare as it is precious.

So there are three ideas. Beyond the Bedroom Wall and East of Eden are real commitments at over 500 pages each but have an epic quality. Out Stealing Horses probably best matches A River Runs Through It and is a much less demanding read. That said, these are all real winners.

Any other ideas for this one? Or maybe you have a question for the Ape? Let us know in the comments.