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Berit Ellingsen

The Empty City Paperback – September 8, 2011

by Berit Ellingsen (Author)

11 ratings

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The Empty City is a story about awakening to universal truths and one’s true self. It is told in short episodes that describe a place, a dream, a question, a memory, a fantasy or an event. Urban explorer and lucid dreamer Brandon Minamoto discovers that outside his thoughts and emotions exists a world that is silent and open, surrounding him and everyone else. The silence starts picking him apart and makes him question his sense of self and his past. But behind all the noise and the stories, there is something constant and unchanging.

Print length

194 pages
Language

English
Publication date

September 8, 2011
Dimensions

6 x 0.44 x 9 inches
ISBN-10

8299873606
ISBN-13

978-8299873604
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Berit Ellingsen is a Norwegian writer whose work has appeared in various online literary journals and print anthologies, most recently or forthcoming in Smokelong Quarterly, Metazen and decomP magazinE.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Jnana Press (September 8, 2011)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 194 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 8299873606
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-8299873604
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 9.4 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.44 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #6,152,762 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #216,331 in Literary Fiction (Books)

Customer Reviews:
11 ratings

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Berit Ellingsen
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Berit Ellingsen is the author of two novels, Not Dark Yet (Two Dollar Radio), and Une ville vide (PublieMonde), a collection of short stories, Beneath the Liquid Skin (Queen's Ferry Press), and a mini-collection of dark fairy-tales, Vessel and Solsvart (Snuggly Books). Her work has been published in W.W. Norton's Flash Fiction International, SmokeLong Quarterly, Unstuck, Litro, and other places, and been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and the British Science Fiction Association Award. She enjoys traveling in the polar regions and is a member of the Norwegian Authors' Union. Find out more at http://beritellingsen.com.
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Berit Ellingsen
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4 out of 5

11 global ratings

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A gentle, mysterious trip to enlightenment

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 12, 2012

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Imagine what it would be like to begin awakening to universal enlightenment without looking for it.

That's what happens to Brandon Minamoto in this introspective book.

The story happens in small vignettes that tell us about this event of that which effected Brandon's world view and state of mind. The author presents dreams and waking events with equal seriousness, and sometimes it's not clear which is which. In one example, Brandon can see the sun high in the sky despite being far underground, exploring. Dreaming? Awake? Unreliable memory?

The story takes place in a city, as the title suggests. It's not named, nor are the country of residence, paternal country, or maternal country of Brandon. The story could take place in the past, the future, or tomorrow. The setting really doesn't matter.

This book is very different from my normal reading fare, but I enjoyed it a lot. Brandon's experience reminded me of descriptions of enlightenment, god consciousness, and Universal Truth from belief systems I have studied. The experiences themselves are well realized, and feel very realistic to the reader.

I gave this book a 4 instead of a 5 simply because the writing becomes rough in places, and the flow of the text is disrupted. In a more granular system, I'd give it a 4.5, at least.

One person found this helpful

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D. S. Atkinson

This is an enigmatically compelling book.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 31, 2015

Verified Purchase

This is an enigmatically compelling book. It seems so straightforward, but there is a strangeness lurking in the empty spaces that imbued reading with a particular urgency. There is a sense of comfort at the same time that I felt vaguely alarmed, though there was nothing alarming. The book details a journey that is both simple and wandering at the same time that it is highly purposeful and difficult to pin down. I enjoyed reading immensely.

One person found this helpful

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A Concerned Citizen

Four Stars

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 29, 2017

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There's a quality in this book that some people would call "stickiness." Pick it up.

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Melanie D. Typaldos

There's no there there.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 1, 2014

Verified Purchase

This book is very nicely written, it's just too bad there isn't an actual story.I kept hoping that, at the end, something would happen that would suddenly congeal the whole thing into one coherent narrative, but that didn't happen. I did get to the end though, which says something about the writting since there was no story.

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Vanessa Wu

A landscape of absolute peace

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 3, 2011

I will leave it to others to explain the philosophical content of this novel. I have never understood novels of ideas. I'm a sensualist.

What attracted me to it was the very smooth quality of the prose. It's like the still surface of a lake, as smooth as glass, reflective but full of depths. That's why this book really needs its cover. Together they are a beautiful work of art.

The sentences, the paragraphs and the chapters have a rhythm as subtle as the finest poetry. The novel breathes. The author pays close attention to the physical properties of things and she evokes them carefully with precise and sensuous language. She writes, in fact, with her senses, which are finely tuned.

It's tempting to quote a few passages. The novel is very quotable and my fingers are positively itching to do it. But I think it's better if you just buy the book. You need to be able to touch it and put it on your table and stroke the cover when you are stressed and are seeking a moment or two of calm in your busy life.

It's not a book to read once and forget. You can read it often. It refreshes you when you are tired and it offers, very modestly and tenderly, a landscape of absolute peace.

2 people found this helpful

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David Hodges

A vivid, lucid dream of spiritual breakthrough (or breakdown!)

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 12, 2011

The Empty City is like a lucid dream. We follow the narrator as he wanders about a nameless and largely empty and silent city, and we many time we are not sure what is real, what is a hallucination, and what is a dream. Her character is either going crazy or becoming enlightened. Ellingsen understands that the road to the enlightened state is a close cousin to the road to insanity, and you are never sure which ground her character is on - maybe it is both. Many of the scenes have a nighmarish quality, which rungs true too, as a person in the grips of a remorseless enlightenment process can feel like they are losing their grip. Despite the lack of a plot per se, you are drawn in by the language itself, which makes you want to read more and more. Berit Ellingsen's voice and narration are tightly controlled and precise so that you never lost your way in her poetic, evocative language. I found myself wanting to quote different passages to friends.
This book is the best evocation of NonDuality I have ever read in fictional form.

2 people found this helpful

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