Jon Fosse

An elegiac meditation on our unlived lives, from the author of Scenes from a Childhood.

Septology I-II

The Other Name

By all the descriptions and praises I shoud've been charmed. I think I'm not prog enough to adore it, but I respect Fosse for writing it. 

I don't feel like finishing the Septology... Do we have to resort to effect though?

martian1138

By all the descriptions and praises I shoud've been charmed. I think I'm not prog enough to adore it, but I respect Fosse for writing it. 

I don't feel like finishing the Septology... Do we have to resort to effect though?

You know that meme that's like I ain't reading all that, I'm happy for you tho, or sorry that happened? That's the only thing I could think about while trying to read this

Regan Martin

Roger Amundsen

"Fosse's fusing of the commonplace and the existential, together with his dramatic forays into the past, make for a relentlessly consuming work: alreadySeptology feels momentous."--The Guardian The Other Name follows the lives of two men living close to each other on the west coast of Norway. The year is coming to a close and Asle, an aging painter and widower, is reminiscing about his life. He lives alone, his only friends being his neighbor, Ã...sleik, a bachelor and traditional Norwegian fisherman-farmer, and Beyer, a gallerist who lives in BjÃ ̧rgvin, a couple hours' drive south of Dylgja, where he lives. There, in BjÃ ̧rgvin, lives another Asle, also a painter. He and the narrator are doppelgangers--two versions of the same person, two versions of the same life. Written in hypnotic prose that shifts between the first and third person,The Other Name calls into question concrete notions around subjectivity and the self. What makes us who we are? And why do we lead one life and not another? Through flashbacks, Fosse deftly explores the convergences and divergences in the lives of both Asles, slowly building towards a decisive encounter between them both. A writer at the zenith of his career, withThe Other Name, the first two volumes in hisSeptology, Fosse presents us with an indelible and poignant exploration of the human condition that will endure as his masterpiece.

The Other Name Septology I-II

Reviews