One of Vesaas's most important novels, The Birds is the story of a woman who dedicated her life to caring for her simple younger brother. When a visiting woodcutter enters their enclosed world, complications arise. The author reveals a deep and compassionate insight into human nature and a lyrical response to the Norwegian landscape. A spare, icily humane story - The character of Mattis, absurd and boastful, also sweet, pathetic, even funny, is shown with great insight."" - Sunday Times. ""[This] novel...gave me particular pleasure."" - Doris Lessing ""A literary gem."" - Publishers Weekly.
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
With spare simplicity, Vesaas (The Ice Palace) tells the tale of Mattis, a mentally disabled man cared for by his lonely older sister, Hege. Their routine, isolated existence is interrupted when a lumberjack arrives at their lakeside cottage and falls in love with Hege, leaving Mattis fearful that he will lose his sister. The careful translation from the Norwegian underscores Vesaas's rare sensitivity in recording Mattis's often insightful view of his world. One episode at the grocer's illustrates his inside-out universe: After buying food, Mattis watches in horror as the grocer puts a packet of candy in his shopping bag: ``He was being given sweets like a child-although he knew about great things like shattered trees and lightning and omens of death.'' Mattis turns the situation around, telling the kindly shopkeeper, ``Well, I guess you can't really help it... being like you are, of course.'' It's a sardonic rejoinder to an earlier plaintive and unanswered query to a farmer's wife: ``Why are things the way they are?'' With only limited understanding of the unpredictable power of nature, Mattis nonetheless turns to the elements to discover the answer-with unsettling results. Vesaas's own secluded life in the Norwegian woods likely informed the novel's themes of isolation and natural forces. A literary gem.
Copyright 1995 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
Language Notes
Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Norwegian
Original Language: Norwegian
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Mad innocent youth.,
By
This review is from: Birds (Paperback)
A masterpiece of Norwegian literature. It's an exploration of the boundaries between madness and "normality", and the story of a young man's sacrifice on the altar of common sense and social unwritten rules. How much reality can we stand before loosing our mind? And how much nature, with its power that dances on our fears and on our weaknesses. It would be a great book to read in the language it was written: a bodily and full consistent Telemark dialect. Something goes lost in the traslation, though it couldn't have been otherwise and the trans-cultural re-codificatoion must have been a hard work. I suggest this book to everybody, especially to those who sometimes ask themselves questions about life.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The greatest book I have read,
By
This review is from: The Birds (Peter Owen Modern Classics) (Paperback)
This book is so tender and sensitive that I could not read more than a few pages in one sitting. It is very simple and easy to read at the same time, but it is important to be concentrated when reading it or else the beauty might be lost.
I have read this book twice now, and I am sure I will read it many more times in my life. I can not say that about any other book.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Classic.,
By A Customer
This review is from: Birds (Paperback)
This is a norwegian classic. The book is a painful reminder of the impossibility of being a human. It's warm and intense and has an exciting perspective. Vesaas was not far from a nobel prize with this book.
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