Aliss at the Fire

De: Jon Fosse, Damion Searls - translator

Narrado por: Kåre Conradi

Winner of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Literature

In her old house by the fjord, Signe lies on a bench and sees a vision of herself as she was more than twenty years earlier: standing by the window waiting for her husband Asle, on that terrible late November day when he took his rowboat out onto the water and never returned. Her memories widen out to include their whole life together, and beyond: the bonds of family and the battles with implacable nature stretching back over five generations, to Asle's great-great-grandmother Aliss. In Jon Fosse's vivid, hallucinatory prose, all these moments in time inhabit the same space, and the ghosts of the past collide with those who still live on. Aliss at the Fire is a visionary masterpiece, a haunting exploration of love and loss that ranks among the greatest meditations on marriage and human fate.

©2022 Jon Fosse and Damion Searls (P)2024 Dreamscape Media

A short but hypnotic, haunting, and mesmerizing read!

A short yet powerful read that is hypnotic and haunting! A slow burner that pays off. Stream-of-consciousness(esque). You’ll want to reread this one. It’ll stick with you for a while.

For anyone interested, I’ve compiled some reading and discussion questions (best if you have a copy of the book as well):

1. We find that Alissa is Asle’s great-great-great-grandmother (41). What might the significance of the title be?

2. The novel is described as having “vivid, hallucinatory” prose. Are the moments described in the novel hallucinations? Memories? Something else? Something more?

3. There’s the occasional comma, but a period (or a “full stop,” as Fosse might say) is used sparingly. What might be the purpose (or the effect) of this?

4. Fosse has said that he considers himself primarily a poet, regardless of the literary form he is using. Does Aliss at the Fire feel, at times, closer to poetry than to a traditional novel? (If so, in what ways does it resemble poetry, and in what ways does it remain a novel?)

5. The significance of the ending, particularly the final line.