The Boat in the Evening

Tarjei Vesaas, Elizabeth Rokkan

• Publisher: Peter Owen Publishers
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN:
  9780720611984
• eBook ISBN:
  9780720617009
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literature General
• Index: Literature

The Boat in the Evening is the last book by the acclaimed Norwegian writer Tarjei Vesaas. On its publication in Scandinavia it was quickly acclaimed as the culmination of Vesaas's work, and placed its author for the third time among the finalists for the Nobel Prize. A crane colony arrives at its breeding ground to play out a delicately drama that ends with the rarelyobserved ceremony of the ritual dance. All is observed by a transfixed child who has frozen into his background and become a piece of nature himself, "a pale tussock in a windcheater". In The Boat in the Evening the author, with a kind of cinematic impressionism, voyages back to episodes from childhood, adolecence and maturity as well as making speculative forays into the unknown. Unfolding in a series of delicate sketches that record the changing moods of human experience, The Boat in the Evening is at once pervaded by a sense of melancholy and a sensuous appreciation of nature. A profound and beautiful book, it is the summation of a literary artist's firsthand experience and observation of rural life - of landscape and people.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Preface
• Contents
• 1 As It Stands in the Memory
• 2 In the Marshes and on the Earth
• 3 Spring in Winter
• 4 Daybreak with Shining Horses
• 5 The Drifter and the Mirrors
• 6 The Wasted Day Creeps Away on Its Belly
• 7 Washed Cheeks
• 8 Fire in the Depths
• 9 Words, Words
• 10 The Dream of Stone
• 11 The Heart Lies Naked beside the Highway in the Dark
• 12 The Tranquil River Glides Out of the Landscape
• 13 Beyond One’s Grasp
• 14 Just Walking Up to Fetch the Churn
• 15 The Melody
• 16 The Rivers beneath the Earth
• Copyright
• Back Cover