Grim northern darkness: Stig Sæterbakken

[Viva June]

In January this year, the wonderful people at Dalkey Archive Press published Siamese by Norwegian author Stig Sæterbakken. Your friends in Copenhagen (that is, MadsPLP and I) recommend that you buy this book, which is easily spotted in any bookstore on account of its striking cover:



As you can tell from the illustration, this is a novel about an elderly, no, an old couple and their various troubles. The star of the show is the blind husband, Edwin, who spends all his time sitting in the bathroom describing to the reader (in long-form scatological monologues) the minutiae of how his decaying body has ceased to function. His wife, Erna, is a patient soul who just about manages to hide her resentment of him. For years the two of them have been thoroughly embedded in their respective daily routines, but then a young intruder threatens to dethrone Edwin and disturb the "harmony" of the household. I forget what the plot is like beyond that, or if there even is one, which just proves that the plot, whatever it is, is unimportant. What matters is the content of the monologues as they are wound tighter and tighter around the Edwin-Erna axis, adding more and more to the sense of claustrophobia experienced by the reader.

Comparisons with Ligotti would not be too far-fetched, but I think Sæterbakken is quite un-Ligottian in his preoccupation with psychological matters. Nevertheless, the book should appeal to all those TLO members who fancy themselves connoisseurs of dark fiction.

Edit: Go here to read one review and follow links to others.

	TLO THOMAS LIGOTTI ONLINE

[G. S. Carnivals]

Is Siamese published in English? Unfortunately, my personal translator of Scandinavian languages now lives hundreds of miles away...

[Viva June]

Yes, Siamese is in English (translated by someone with the trustworthy name Stokes Schwartz). The original title is Siamesisk.

[MadsPLP]

Quote Originally Posted by G. S. Carnivals

Is Siamese published in English? Unfortunately, my personal translator of Scandinavian languages now lives hundreds of miles away...

An extract can be read here:
Siamese

Two chapters from the novel are available on Sæterbakkens website, albeit in a different translation.

Chapter 1 can be found here:
Siamese

Chapter 2 here:
Siamese

Mind you, as VivaJune correctly points out, that Edwin is the star of the show; at the links above, his monologue is available in chapter 2.

Edwin is surely one of the most monstrous and grotesque shrivelled, old senile persons in literature, and his voice in the novel is one of the most bleak and claustrophobic and extremely funny monologues I have ever read:

Quote

The skull is a place for reflection, but also for a horde of troubles. It’s a dark cave full of words, a living hell. As for the rest, I can’t boast, I’m like Diogenes who lived in a barrel, this body is my barrel, it is suitably long and spacious, it has settled down into a comfortable sitting position and there it sits. There is hardly any life in it, just enough to get me through the day. Some palpitations, a little respiration, that’s all it takes… [...] I smell like a corpse, it’s that far gone already, I suspect there’s more ammonia than meat down there, I’m not certain I’d be able to find it if I tried, my fingers are swollen and numb, sometimes they’re without feeling for days on end. Once there was a little flame burning down there, I can’t remember when it went out, I can’t remember how it felt whilst it was burning, either. Nowadays it just hangs there, like a trophy, it has a plastic tube pushed up its spout, I’m sitting here with my cock in an endlessly long condom, my last protection against what would otherwise probably have devoured me long ago, it’s like an umbilical cord attached to a stillborn child…

(Please note that the quote above is from Sæterbakken's website, not from the official translation.)

A former leader of a nursing home, Edwin reminisces about the time when he was an authority figure and an undisputed leader, his resentment towards the patients (or inmates) whilst having megalomaniacal senile delusions, simultaneously a king on his throne and a leaking, rotting corpse-to-be. Edna is, in the reception of the novel, mainly interpreted as a victim, but I remember finding her quite sinister in all her caretaking. The plot, as VivaJune writes, doesn't matter, it's the monologues, and the tension they create that's important.

Highly recommended!

[Viva June]

Also, if I can hijack my own thread for a moment, anyone who reads Siamese and likes it must read The Maimed by Hermann Ungar.