Translated by Don Bartlett and Don Shaw
Alerted belatedly to Dolce Bellezza’s Norway in November reading month, I was able to find a novella to fit in, thus fitting #NovNov24 too. Back in 2014, I read Loe’s Lazy Days, a novel about a family on holiday, although Bror is meant to be writing. Instead he fantasizes about Nigella Lawson and the deterioration of his and Nina’s relationship as the vacation goes on. It’s a slightly dark, very dead-pan comedy, translated by Bartlett and Shaw too. I later acquired Loe’s earlier novel Doppler, published in 2004, translated in 2012, hoping for more of the same, just loving the book’s tag line:
An elk is for life… not just for Christmas
However, the novella itself begins slightly challengingly:
My father is dead.
And yesterday I took the life of an elk.
What can I say?
It was either her or me. I was starving.
Thus we meet the titular narrator, Doppler, who after the death of his father, having one day fallen off his bicycle, has an epiphany and abandons his wife and two kids in the village below, disappearing off into the adjacent forest with a tent to live. Doppler couldn’t bear people any more. This had been brought home to him by his teenaged daughter, who had dragged him to see the second part of the Lord of the Rings film trilogy – she’d seen it eleven times already – he couldn’t understand her obsession. When she asked him afterwards, ‘Do you feel nothing in your heart?’ and his replies were rather matter of fact, she retorts.
You don’t like people, she said. You’re not a people person. And that’s why I don’t like you.
Back to the forest. When Doppler killed the elk which he lured with stolen hay, he hadn’t appreciated that she had a calf, which hangs around, even as Doppler is frying up bits of his mum. The two bond, and keep each other warm at night. Doppler can talk to the calf, whom he calls ‘Bongo’. Doppler does pop into the village occasionally – he does a deal with the grocer – elk meat for regular skimmed milk. He has a favourite pissing spot where he can look down on the village too. He used to steal food from Dusseldorf’s cellar stores also, but the old man got wise to the pilfering and installed an alarm.
His family haven’t given up on him completely though. On one of her occasional visits, his wife tells him she’s pregnant. It’s getting into winter now, and she gives him an ultimatum. He has until May when the baby is due to return home.
Doppler just carries on. On his rare excursions into the village, he visits Dusseldorf who is building a model village to celebrate his own father’s death scene! Doppler is by now carving a totem pole in memory of his own father. Then his wife declares that she’s spending a long weekend in Italy with a friend before the baby comes. He will have to look after their son and be exposed to children’s TV – his most hated thing, and have to go to their daughter’s parents evening! He gets through it somehow, and retreats to the forest…
I spend a whole day enthusiastically humming a melody I can’t place. I’m feeling on top of the world […] Snatches of the lyrics begin to emerge by the evening, and I sing them uncritically for quite a time before I realise, in a cold sweat, that what I’m churning out is the signature tune to an Australian TV show, Bananas in Pyjamas. Not even out here in the forest am I spared the poisoned darts of children’s culture.
Oh, that did make me laugh! And naturally, it became an instant ear-worm.
But more people will come to the forest. What will Doppler (and Bongo) do when their isolated way of life comes under threat? And what will happen when the baby comes? Let’s just say that Loe’s protagonist has a unique solution!
Once again, I really enjoyed Loe’s dead-pan style, which somehow makes Doppler’s matter-of-factness, exasperations, and friendship with his elk rather endearing. You’ll have gathered that Doppler isn’t beyond a bit of petty-thievery to boost his existence, he doesn’t see it as such, he’s just getting what he needs. So he hasn’t totally rejected consumerism totally – such are life’s contradictions. I did feel sorry for him, as he hasn’t got any friends, bar Dusseldorf for a while, in fact, he reminded me of many of Magnus Mills’ characters. I also felt hugely for his long-suffering wife who just gets on with it! I loved the humour and slight satire, the social comment and quiet subversion. Only one more of Loe’s novels has been translated into English so far, and it sits waiting for me on my shelves already, so this time next year perhaps for Naive, Super?
Source: Own copy. Head of Zeus hardback, 170 pages – BUY in paperback from Blackwell’s or Amazon UK (link will work).
I do like the sound of this. Another for the list, and the earworm passage made me laugh. My poor partner is often tormented by advertisng jingles from his childhhood – ‘Now hands that do dishes…’ and ‘Opal Fruits, made to make your mouth water’ being amongst them.
I love rather than are tormented by all the same old jingles from my childhood – but I’m with Doppler on Bananas – I despised that programme when my daughter was little. Mind – you should see what he says about the Teletubbies! (Of course Norwegians probably wouldn’t have Toyah in it with dubbing?)
That combination of “uncritically” singing something that’s in your head, and the “cold sweat” when you tune in to yourself and recognise the song, is terrifically evoked. On the whole I’m not sure how much I could cope with Doppler as a character (his wife? Is pregnant?! Get out of the damn woods??!) but this does sound like it has a light and humorous touch, which is good.
Doppler is such a contradiction as a character. His man-nerisms are many and irritating – but full of humour. This is leavened by his friendships with Bongo, and later with his son, both are endearing. He and his wife’s relationship is odd, but actually seems to work which is the strangest thing.
I love the whole idea of adopting a baby elk and naming it Bongo. It’s ridiculous and super cute.
Oh no, not another November challenge! Not sure I could cope with adding one more on. I remember reading this back in the day (maybe even 12 years ago right at its translation?) and enjoying the sense of humour.
I know – but as I had a couple of days before planning to get stuck into some chunkier fare, I managed to squeeze in this quirky novella which was great fun.
This is the only book of his I’ve read as well, but I remember it being quite fun. (I had a lot to say about the humour here, and it’s interesting that my Canadian copy said moose instead of elk although the translators are the same!)