Video still from Tarjei Vesaas reading from "Is-slottet", for Opphavsrett NRK, 1968
A lush, warm, brooding void that envelopes the senses. We are seduced by this overtly autobiographical account, as this is Tarjei's final work -and his most sacred. A hallucinatory tale of a young boy bound by the vivid observations he makes of his father, set against the brutal winter landscape of the Norwegian countryside. Intimate, dreadful, charming. Time is not present here, but an entity that has caused great damage, and the boy is distraught. They clear snow from the roads, from the gully -there is nothing to think about but the silence, the wet horse and the snow on it's muzzle. If one dreams, it's only to escape the nothingness. When a birch branch breaks, not even that sound is heard -pitiful duties, blinded by an idleness. The boy imagines what life would be like if the snow had ever stopped falling. Although his greatest challenge is to penetrate the emptiness of his father's eyes -cold, distant, unwelcoming; such a silence and disconnect is as deafening as the snowfall. Perhaps his father despises him because he possesses what appears to be lost -his own youth, his dreams, and his strength. A father defeated.
"The day creeps on its belly like a snake, and breaks in pieces in order to make off into thousands of hiding places; in the wilderness, in the upper reaches of lakes, between the blocks of stone in ancient mountain slides...The betrayed day, once so splendidly equipped, has no chance now."
Intimate, dreadful, and charming. First published in 1968, yet it's strange conviction blends the ever present sensation of loss that we can relate to today. It can be observed that Tarjei's own memory may have been deteriorating upon completing this fragmented novel, but there is a rhythm which slowly emerges -and you're out there in the nothingness, alone, cold, and tired. You must put the book down, set it aside so as to digest these sterile, yet simultaneously challenging, vignettes. I am reminded of Lawrence English's album Cruel Optism, or Popol Vuh's 1975 masterpiece, Das Hohelied Salomos.
Tarjei's The Hills Reply renders the reader helpless, although once we arrive to the second chapter, 'In the Marshes and on the Earth', something miraculous happens. "The great bird folds his wings. With my eyes above the moss I can watch. It stands in the marsh with an uplifted, inquiring head...I am quivering with excitement...I am lying in cold marsh moisture that slowly penetrates my clothes, making me damp and filthy."
—Originally published for Book Soup