Shyness and Dignity (Paperback)

by Dag Solstad (Author), Sverre Lyngstad (Translator)
Key Phrases: student village, senior master

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
An Oslo academic who came of age in the way-out '60s shrinks back from the glaring modern age in Norwegian novelist and playwright Solstad's remarkably nuanced novel, his first to be translated into English. Elias Rukla, described in this stiff translation as "a rather sottish senior master in his fifties with a wife who had spread out a bit too much," is fed up after 25 years of teaching Ibsen's Wild Duck to increasingly apathetic 19-year-olds at Oslo's Fagerborg Secondary School. A breakdown following an incident with an umbrella and verbally abusing a student makes Elias recognize he has become obsolete. Accompanied by rueful thoughts of his aging but once beautiful wife, Eva Linde, the drama of Elias's life unfolds, from the memory of his friendship with Eva's first husband, the intellectual dynamo and Marxist Johan Corneliussen. Inseparable mates at university, the men engaged in vigorous discussions about philosophy and literature that stretched over days and numerous parties. But Johan inexplicably left for New York to join the capitalist quagmire he always railed against, abandoning Eva and their young child, a betrayal from which Elias never recovers. With sublime restraint and subtle modulation, Solstad conveys an entire age of sorrow and loss. (Aug.)
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Review
Solstad's writing is fantastic, with sentence structures ranging from Hemingway...to Faulkner. -- Emerging Writers Network

With sublime restraint and subtle modulation, Solstad conveys an entire age of sorrow and loss. -- Publisher's Weekly

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Product Details

• Paperback: 112 pages
• Publisher: Graywolf Press (July 25, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1555974465
• ISBN-13: 978-1555974466
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.2 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #114,274 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dag Shames American Authors, July 28, 2006

By	JAMES AGNEW "UBU ROI" (Ann Arbor, MI United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Shyness & Dignity reminded me of several of my favorite authors: Saul Bellow, especially "Seize the Day," with its portrayal of an irrevocable moment of existential dread, Samuel Beckett for its painstaking examination of the world in so absurdly rational a way as to bring rationality into question, and Knut Hamsun, especially Hunger, in its presentation of consciousness, so vivid that it can be said that consciousness itself is the hero. It's a novel so fresh and real that it puts the pallid exercises of contemporary American academic "authors" to shame. Let's hope more Dag Solstad gets published!