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.
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).
