The Other Name

Jon Fosse, Damion Searls

• Publisher: Fitzcarraldo Editions
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9781910695913
• eBook ISBN:
  9781910695920
• Topic: Literatura
• Subtopic: Literatura general

What makes us who we are? And why do we lead one life and not another? The year is coming to a close and Asle, an ageing painter and widower who lives alone on the southwest coast of Norway, is reminiscing about his life. His only friends are his neighbour, Åsleik, a traditional fisherman-farmer, and Beyer, a gallerist who lives in the city. There, in Bjørgvin, lives another Asle, also a painter but lonely and consumed by alcohol. Asle and Asle are doppelgängers – two versions of the same person, two versions of the same life, both grappling with existential questions about life, death, love, light and shadow, faith and hopelessness. Written in melodious and hypnotic 'slow prose', The Other Name: Septology I-II is an indelible and poignant exploration of the human condition by Jon Fosse, 'a major European writer' (Karl Ove Knausgaard), in which everything is always there, and past and present flow together.

I

And I see myself standing and looking at the picture with the two lines that cross in the middle, one purple line, one brown line, it’s a painting wider than it is high and I see that I’ve painted the lines slowly, the paint is thick, two long wide lines, and they’ve dripped, where the brown line and purple line cross the colours blend beautifully and drip and I’m thinking this isn’t a picture but suddenly the picture is the way it’s supposed to be, it’s done, there’s nothing more to do on it, I think, it’s time to put it away, I don’t want to stand here at the easel any more, I don’t want to look at it any more, I think, and I think today’s Monday and I think I have to put this picture away with the other ones I’m working on but am not done with, the canvases on stretchers leaning against the wall between the bedroom door and the hall door under the hook with the brown leather shoulderbag on it, the bag where I keep my sketch-pad and pencil, and then I look at the two stacks of finished paintings propped against the wall next to the kitchen door, I already have ten or so big paintings finished plus four or five small ones, something like that, fourteen paintings in all in two stacks next to each other by the kitchen door, since I’m about to have a show, most of the paintings are approximately square, as they put it, I think, but sometimes I also paint long narrow ones and the one with the two lines crossing is noticeably oblong, as they put it, but I don’t want to put this one into the show because I don’t like it much, maybe all things considered it’s not really a painting, just two lines, or maybe I want to keep it for myself and not sell it? I like to keep my best pictures, not sell them, and maybe this is one of them, even though I don’t like it? yes, maybe I do want to hold onto it even if you might say it’s a failed painting? I don’t know why I’d want to keep it, with the bunch of other pictures I have up in the attic, in a storage room, instead of getting rid of it, or maybe, anyway, maybe Åsleik wants the picture? yes, to give Sister as a Christmas present? because every year during Advent I give him a painting that he gives to Sister as a Christmas present and I get meat and fish and firewood and other things from him, yes, and I mustn’t forget, as Åsleik always says, that he shovels the snow from my driveway in the winter too, yes, he says things like that too, and when I say what a painting like that can sell for in Bjørgvin Åsleik says he can’t believe people would pay so much for a painting, anyway whoever does pay that much money must have a lot of it, he says, and I say I know what you mean about it being a lot of money, I think so too, and Åsleik says well in that case he’s getting a really good deal, in that case it’s a very expensive Christmas present he’s giving Sister every year, he says, and I say yes, yes, and then we both fall silent, and then I say that I do give him a little money for the salt-cured lamb ribs for Christmas, dry-cured mutton, salt cod, firewood, and for shovelling the snow, maybe a bag with some groceries that I bought in Bjørgvin when I’ve gone there to run an errand, I say, and he says, a little embarassed, yes I do do that, fair’s fair, he says, and I think I shouldn’t have said that, Åsleik doesn’t want to accept money or anything else from me, but when I think about how I have enough money to get by and he has almost none, yes, well, I slip him a few more bills, quickly, furtively, as if neither of us knows it’s happening, and when I go run errands in Bjørgvin I always buy something for Åsleik, I think, because I may not make much money but he makes almost nothing compared to me, I think, and I look at the stack of finished paintings with the homemade stretchers they’re on facing out and every painting has a title painted in thick black oil paint on the top board of the stretcher, and the painting I’m looking at the back of, at the front of the stack, is called And the Waves Beat Their Message, titles are very important to me, they’re part of the picture itself, and I always paint the title in black on the top of the stretcher, I make my stretchers myself, I always have and I always will as long as I paint pictures, I think, and I think that there may actually be too many paintings here for a show but I’ll take them all to The Beyer Gallery anyway, Beyer can put some of them in the side room of the gallery, in The Bank, as he calls the room where he stores pictures that aren’t in the show, I think, and then I take another look at the picture with the two lines crossing, both in impasto as they put it, and the paint has run a little and where the lines cross the colours have turned such a strange colour, a beautiful colour, with no name, they usually don’t have names because obviously there can’t be names for all the countless colours in the world, I think and I step a few feet back from the picture and stop and look at it and then turn off the light and stand there looking at the picture in the dark, because it’s dark outside, at this time of year it’s dark, or almost dark, all day long, I think and I look at the picture and my eyes get used to the darkness and I see the lines, see them cross, and I see that there’s a soft light in the painting, yes, a soft invisible light, well then yes so it probably is a good painting, maybe, I think, and I don’t want to look at the picture any more, I think, but still I’m standing and looking at it, I have to stop looking at it now, I think, and then I look at the round table over by the window, there are two chairs next to it and one of them, the one on the left, that’s where I sat and sit, and the right-hand one was where Ales always sat, when she was still alive, but then she died, too young, and I don’t want to think about that, and my sister Alida, she died too young too, and I don’t want to think about that either, I think, and I see myself sitting there in my chair looking out at the fixed point in the waters of the Sygne Sea that I always look at, my landmark, with the tops of the pines that grow below my house in the middle of the centre pane in the bisected window, in the right-hand part, because the window is divided in two and both parts can be opened and each side is divided into three rows and the tops of the pines will be in the middle row of the right side and I can make out the pines and I’ve found the mark, right at the midline I can see waves out there in the darkness and I see myself sitting there looking at the waves and I see myself walking over to my car where it’s parked in front of The Beyer Gallery, I’m there in my long black coat with my brown leather bag over my shoulder, I’ve just been to The Coffeehouse, I didn’t have much of an appetite, I often don’t, and just skip dinner, but today I’ve had a simple open-faced ground-beef sandwich with onions and now the day’s over and I’ve bought everything I wanted to buy in Bjørgvin so now it’s time for me to drive home to Dylgja, after all it’s a long drive, I think, and I get into the car, I put the brown shoulderbag down on the passenger seat and start the car and then leave Bjørgvin the way Beyer taught me, one day he showed me the way, showed me how to drive into Bjørgvin and out of Bjørgvin, how to get to The Beyer Gallery and then leave The Beyer Gallery the same way going in the opposite direction, I think, and I’m driving out of Bjørgvin and I fall into the nice stupor you can get into while you’re driving and I realize I’m driving right past the apartment building where Asle lives, in Sailor’s Cove, right at the edge of the sea, there’s a little wharf in front of it, I think, and I see Asle lying there on his sofa and he’s shaking, his whole body’s shivering, and Asle thinks can’t this shaking stop? and he’s thinking he slept on the couch last night because he couldn’t get up and get undressed and go lie down in bed, and the dog, he couldn’t even, Bragi, the dog, couldn’t go outside, and he’s still drunk, he thinks, really drunk, and he needs to stop shaking so badly, his whole body’s shaking, not just his hands, Asle thinks and he thinks that now he really has to get up and go to the kitchen and get a little something to drink to stop the shaking, because last night he didn’t get undressed and go to bed, no, he just stayed where he was and passed out on the sofa, he thinks, and now he’s lying here staring into space while his body keeps shaking, he thinks, and everything is, yes, what is it? an emptiness? a nothingness? a distance? yes, maybe yes, yes maybe it’s a distance, he thinks, and now he has to go pour himself a little drink so that the worst of the shaking will go away, Asle thinks, and then, then, he’ll go outside and go out to sea, that’s what he’ll do, Asle thinks, that’s the only thing he wants, the only thing he longs to do is go away, disappear, the way his sister Alida went away back when she was a child, she just lay there, dead in her bed, Sister, Asle thinks, and the way the neighbour boy went away, Bård was his name, he fell off his father’s rowboat into the sea and he couldn’t swim and he didn’t make it back on board the boat or back to land, Asle thinks and he thinks now he’ll make an effort and get up and then go to the kitchen and pour himself a stiff drink so the shaking stops a little and then he’ll walk around the apartment and turn off the lights, walk around the whole apartment and make sure everything is neat and organized, and then leave, lock the door, go down to the sea and then go out to sea and just keep going out into the sea, Asle thinks, and he thinks that thought again and again, it’s the only thought he can think, the thought that he’s going to go out to sea, he thinks, that he’s going to disappear into the sea, into the nothingness of the waves, Asle thinks and the thought goes around and around in his head, it won’t stop, it just keeps on circling around, this one thought is all that’s real, everything else is empty distance, empty closeness, no, nothing is empty, but it’s something like empty, there in this darkness, and every other thought he tries to think he can’t think, the other thoughts are too hard, even the idea that he should raise his arm seems too hard, and he realizes he’s shaking, even though he’s not moving his whole body’s shaking and why can’t he manage the thought of getting up? of lifting his hand? why is the only thought he can think that he wants to go out to sea? that he wants to drink enough to make the shaking stop and then turn off the lights in the apartment, maybe straighten up the apartment if it needs it, because everything needs to be neat and tidy before he goes away, Asle thinks, and he thinks that maybe he should’ve written something to The Boy, but The Boy is a grown man now, isn’t he, he hasn’t been a child for a long time, he lives in Oslo, or maybe he could call him? but he doesn’t like talking on the phone and neither does The Boy, Asle thinks, or maybe he should write to Liv? after all they were married for many years, but they were divorced so long ago that there are no hard feelings between them, because he can’t go away just like that without saying goodbye to someone, that feels wrong, but the other woman he was married to, Siv, he can’t even bear to think about her, she just left and took The Son and The Daughter away and moved far away from him, she’d left before he knew it, he hadn’t thought about getting divorced at all and she told him she’d had enough and took The Son and The Daughter and left, she had already found a new place for herself and them, she said, and he never noticed anything, Asle thinks, and then for a while The Son and The Daughter came to spend every weekend with him, he thinks, but then Siv found a new husband and she took The Son and The Daughter and moved to a place somewhere in Trøndelag to be with this new man, she took the children and went away and then he was alone again and then Siv wrote and said he had to pay for this and that and as soon as she asked him he paid her, whenever he had money, he thinks, and why think about that? Asle thinks, it’s just something that happened, now everything’s been taken care of, everything’s ready, all the painting supplies are in their proper place there on the table and the pictures are leaning against the wall, stretchers facing out, the brushes are in a neat row, all cleaned, big to small, all wiped clean with turpentine, and the tubes of paint are also arranged properly, next to each other, full to empty, every cap screwed on tight, and there’s nothing on the easel, everything’s clean and taken care of and in its proper place and he’s just lying there shaking, not thinking anything, just shaking and then he again thinks he should get up and leave and lock the door and then go out and then go down to the sea and out into the sea, go out into the sea, go out until the waves crash over him and he disappears into the sea, he thinks it again and again, otherwise nothing, otherwise the darkness of nothingness, the way it sometimes sweeps through him in quick glimpses like an illumination and yes, yes, then he’s filled with a kind of happiness and he thinks that there might be a place somewhere that’s an empty nothingness, an empty light, and just think, what if everything could be like that? he thinks, could be empty light? imagine a place like that? in its emptiness, in its shining emptiness? in its nothingness? Asle thinks and while he thinks about a place like that, which is obviously no place, he thinks, he falls into a kind of sleep that isn’t like sleep but more a bodily movement where he’s not moving, despite all his shaking, yes, he’s been shaking the whole time, everything’s heavy and hard and there’s a place in the big heaviness that’s an unbelievably gentle shining light, like faith, yes, like a promise, Asle thinks and I see him lying there in the living room, or studio, whatever it’s called, I think, he’s lying on the sofa next to the window looking out over the sea and there’s a table by the sofa and a couple of closed sketch-pads on the table and some pencils, all in a neat row, it’s his room, Asle’s room, just that, I think, and everything in his room is neat and tidy and hanging on one wall is a large canvas with the stretcher facing out, the picture turned to the wall, and I see that Asle has painted A Shining Darkness on the stretcher in black paint, so that must be the title of the painting, I think, and there’s a roll of canvas in a corner of the room, there are pieces of wood for making stretchers in another corner, I see, and I see Asle lying there on the sofa and his body is shaking and he’s thinking that he has to go get a drink so he can stop shaking and he sits up and then he’s sitting on the sofa and he’s thinking that now he really needs a cigarette but he’s shaking so much he can’t even roll a cigarette so he takes one out of the pack lying on the coffee table, he gets a cigarette out of the pack and gets it into his mouth and gets his matches out of his pocket and strikes a match and manages to light the cigarette and he takes a good drag and thinks he won’t take this cigarette out of his mouth, the ashes can just fall wherever they fall, and now he definitely needs a glass of something, Asle thinks, and he keeps shaking and he manages to put the matches back in his pocket and he bends over the ashtray on the coffee table and spits the cigarette down into the ashtray and I’m driving north and I think I should stop by and see Asle, I shouldn’t just drive past his house here in Sailor’s Cove, but I can’t stop him from going out to sea and going out into the sea if he wants to, if that’s what he really wants to do he’ll do it, I think and I’m driving north and I see myself standing and looking at the picture with the two lines that cross and I see myself go to the kitchen in my old house, because it is an old house, and an old kitchen, and I see that everything’s in its proper place and the sink and the kitchen table have been dried off, I see, everything is clean and nice, the way it should be, and I see myself go into the bathroom, turn on the light, and there too everything’s neat and organized, the sink is clean, the toilet’s clean, and I see myself stop in front of the mirror and I see my thin grey hair, my grey stubble, and I run my hands through my hair and then take off the black hairband holding my hair back and my hair falls long and thin and grey down over my shoulders, down onto my chest, and I push my fingers through my hair, pull my hair back behind my ears, then I take the black hairband and gather my hair and tie it back with it and then I go out into the hall and I see my black coat hanging there, how many years have I had that coat now? I think, no one could ever accuse me of buying lots of clothes I don’t need, I think, and I see some scarves hanging on a hook and I think that I have a lot of scarves because Ales used to give me scarves for Christmas or as a birthday present, since that’s what I wanted, she asked what I wanted and I usually said I wanted a scarf and then that’s what I got, I think and I go into the living room, or studio, whatever it’s called, really it’s both, but I call it the main room or the living room and I see the brown leather shoulderbag hanging on the hook above the paintings I’ve put aside, the ones I’m not totally satisfied with, the ones leaning against the wall between the bedroom door and the hall door, and when I go out I always take the brown shoulderbag with me and I keep a sketch-pad and pencil in it, I think, and I see the shoulderbag there on the passenger seat next to me and I’m driving north and I think how I’m looking forward to getting back home to my good old house in Dylgja and I see myself standing and looking at the round table by the window and the two empty chairs next to the table, there’s a black velvet jacket hanging over the back of one of the chairs, yes, the jacket I’m wearing, there on the chair closest to the bench, the chair where I always used to sit, and Ales used to sit in the chair next to it, that was her chair, I think, and I see myse...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Praise
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Contents
• I
• II
• About the Authors
• Copyright