Tarjei Vesaas | The Birds / 2016

the profundity of a simple life

by Douglas Messerli

 

Tarjei Vesaas The Birds, translated into English by Michael Barnes and Torbjørn Støverud (Brooklyn: Archipelago Books, 2016)

 

This last week, for the third time over the past 40 years, I read the great Norwegian writer Tarjei Vesaas’ novel The Birds. I can definitively tell you, despite the Columbia Encyclopedia’s egregious entry on Vesaas, it was nothing at all to do with Alfred Hitchcock’s movie of the same name.

       In fact, there is only one bird in the book, a woodcock, which swoops down for two nights upon the small lakeside cottage where the major character, Mattis, and his hard-working sister, Hege live. The shooting of the bird by a local boy is quite devastating for the mentally challenged man. Although he is, as he himself knows, not one of the “clever” ones, he is, nonetheless, very much in touch with the natural world, and the bird’s death is like a terrifying totem for him, as he ceremonially buries it under a rock. That event, along with a lightning strike of one of two trees standing outside their home, trees which the locals have dubbed, just as the nearby inhabitants, Mattis and Hege, troubles the obviously superstitious man.

     Although he cannot think very clearly, Vesaas’ figure thinks, throughout this book, a great deal, attempting to comprehend not only the confusing world around him but the problems he is facing with his own thoughts. The author’s simple poetic Ny Norsk (new Norwegian) phrases, in fact, reveal just how complex such a “simpleton” truly is as human being.  

      By comparison, Hege, who spends most of her day knitting sweaters to support herself and her brother, seems to have no time for thinking, and acts far more compulsively that Mattis. Indeed, it is on a compulsion that she suggests—almost as one my try to imagine an activity for a troublesome child—that he take his boat to the other side of the nearby lake to see if someone might what to be ferried back. She almost immediately regrets it, realizing that no one lives on the other side and that Mattis’ boat badly leaks. Yet he is so eager to “help” that Mattis immediately sets about repairing the boat, having just the previous day encountered two lovely women tourists who, instead of mocking him as do the locals, spoke to him as if he were a normal human being.

     Amazingly, after rowing the distance back and forth several times, he does encounter a logger who wants to be taken to the other side. Indeed the woodsman needs somewhere to stay, and he immediately is taken into their home. Thus begins a series of events wherein Hege and their guest Jørgen gradually fall in love.

      At first, their relationship is covert, but gradually Mattis notices the change that has overcome his sister, hearing her laugh for the first time in years and observing the flushes that cross her face. Over a period of weeks, he ponders the new situation, feeling at once left out of their world but also standing in the way of his sister’s happiness.

      Narrating the book primarily from Mattis’ point-of-view, Vesaas seldom states anything, but shows through actions and simple metaphors what is going on in Mattis’ head. One scene, where the central character becomes terrified in a thunderstorm finally results in a kind showdown between the two men. As the storm comes up, Mattis stops in his ferrying, returning to shore:

 

                Up at the tope he saw Jørgen toing into the house. Had

                he had an accident in the forest? Didn’t look like it.

                Jørgen hadn’t gone to the forest yet, was at home with

                Hege when he should be at work.

                    Things are in a real mess, Mattis thought. Jørgen

                doesn’t feel trees and Hege doesn’t knit sweaters. I’ll

                soon be the only one here who does any work.

 

Terrified by the continual rumbling of the lighting, Mattis would like to return to the house, but realizes that it is best not to. He runs instead to an out building, jamming his fingers into his ears like a terrified child. But soon finds that Jørgen is standing outside the door, demanding that he come out.

 

                  Jørgen shouted: “Do I have to come in and drag you out!

                  Out with you now, Mattis!

                      What was going on? Jørgen was almost unrecognizable.

                  Drag you out, he said, making it impossible to stay. Outside

                  the thunder was crashing so violently that Mattis’ face

                  turned pale and his legs felt limp, but he had to go out now

                  all the same—or there’d be nothing left of him. And all

                  because Jørgen stood there calling.

                        “I’m coming!” he shouted through the door.

                        He undid the hook and his eyes were almost blinded by

                  a flash of lightning as he opened the door, it seemed to get

                  right inside him—but he walked across the threshold and

                  out onto the grass. There was a crash of thunder overhead.

                  The rain had held off so far.

                        He hardly realized where he was—but there was

                  Jørgen, standing right in front of him. His eyes were half-

                  blinded, he saw Jørgen through a mist, and farther away

                  he could just make out Hege standing in the doorway. She

                  was gesticulating and waving to Jørgen, looked as though

                  she was trying to make him stop—wanted Mattis to be  

                  spared this ordeal.

                        “Here I am!” Marris announced simply, and stepped

                  forward. All feeling had gone from his legs. We walked

                  straight toward Jørgen who had stepped back a little. The

                  lightning flashed again.

                       “What is it you want, Jørgen?”

 

     In this short passage, we can see how the author uses basically simply words, repetitions, and nature itself to show a tumultuous change in Mattis’ world, the intrusion of a man who, at moments, treats him even more than Hege, as a child.

     Much of the fiction centers on Mattis’ attempts to behave as a normal adult, although he fails again and again. Now we realize that Mattis will be infantilized even further by the relationship between his sister and the stranger.

     He has no choice, he perceives but to disappear, and purposely scuttles his small boat, a few days later, in the lake, drowning with a cry, Vesaas tells us, like that of a strange bird. The simpleton’s life, so the author shows us, is actually quite profound.

 

Los Angeles, July 1, 2016

Reprinted from Rain Taxi (Vol. 21, no. 4, Winter 2016).