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Translated from the Norwegian by Elizabeth Rokkan
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 rarely-observed 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 first-hand experience and observation
of rural life – of landscape and people.
‘A book of great strength and beauty.’ – The
Times
‘A rare kind of masterpiece, and another proof that
the spirit that of poetry can find truer expression in prose
than verse. If Wordsworth were alive he would be quarrying
such veins in such a way.’ – Daily Telegraph
‘A rare mixture of creative vitality, conviction and
artistry . . . What makes the book for me is the way he
[Vesaas] establishes natural presences — trees , wind,
water, rocks, ice — as not just characters in their
own right but as somehow possessing more right, more reality
than the human ones.’ – Guardian
TARJEI VESAAS was born in 1897 in the remote rural
Telemark district of Norway, where he spent most of his life.
Throughout his life he published several novels, volumes of
poetry and a book of short stories which was awarded an international
prize at Venice in 1952. He was awarded several other prizes
and was a candidate for the Nobel Prize in 1964, 1968 and
again in 1969. He died in 1970, his reputation as the leading
Nordic writer firmly established. |
