3 Minute Book Review: In the Wake by Per Petterson (Trans. Anne Born)

SYNOPSIS: Six years after his parents and siblings perished in a ferry accident, frustrated writer Arvid begins to re-assemble his life.

REVIEW: One of the strengths of this novel is its ability to fill the everyday with consequence. As Arvid wanders around Oslo, he does nothing extraordinary. He walks in the woods. He takes his daughter to lunch. And yet, in these small gestures we sense that Arvid is permitting himself to feel again.

By focusing on the mundane, Petterson allows the reader to connect with Arvid in a way not typical of most novels. Arvid is human, as we are human, and he deals with his grief in ways that are universally understandable – not by going to war or giving long speeches, but by smiling at his neighbor. By purchasing a Napoleon dessert.

The only weak point in the novel comes as Arvid meets his love interest. If their romance does not feel contrived, its genesis does. Suffice it to say that men generally do not successfully meet women in this way, especially not men like Arvid.

Still, this is a minor flaw in what is otherwise a very comforting book. It’s a quiet and delicate book, and in a quiet and delicate way, Petterson encourages the reader, as he encourages Arvid, to accept what was and to appreciate what is.

VERDICT: Worth checking out from the library.

My FAVORITE PASSAGE occurs as Arvid and his lover, who lives across the street, stare at each other through their living room windows:

Her skin shines dimly and is whiter than anything else I can see, and she lifts both hands and lays their palms against the pane, and then I do the same, lift my hands and lay the palms against the pane, and it’s as if it was just that one window, a few millimetres of glass between her and me on a night when the rain has stopped and the moon hangs transparent and clear above the block right in front of me, and I stand naked in my own living room with hands and nose on the window, and I hear my breath wheezing and my heart beating, but otherwise all is silence.