Fosse: Vaim | The Modern Novel

Jon Fosse: Vaim (Vaim)

This book is divided into three interrelated stories, each one narrated by a separate person and with the three appearing in chronological order. There are three main male characters and they are the ones that tell the stories. In addition there is one main female character who appears in the stories of the men.

Westart with an aging man who arrives at a wharf in Bjorgvin. Fosse calls it Bjorgvin but that is simply the old name of Bergen. He comes fromVaim, a small town whose name appears to be fictitious. He comes to Bjorgvin to buy things that he cannot buy in the general store in Vaim. On this occasion, he simply wants a sewing needle and thread to sew a button on. However, he goes to the various clothing stores, but they only want to sell him new clothes and do not have a needle and thread. Eventually, he finds a shop where the owner is prepared to sell him her own needle and thread but charges him 2500 kroner which is the equivalent of £18.50/$25. He feels cheated, not least because there is very little thread left but as the woman has gone to so much trouble, he reluctantly accepts. However, he will obsess about this issue throughout his story..

Jatgeir – we eventually learnhis name – is a solitary man. He lives on his own in the house where he was born. His parents are dead, he has no siblings and clearly not only has he never been married but never seems to have had a romantic relationship. He has one sort of friend., Elias, but they do not seem too close and Elias has only once, reluctantly, travel onJatgeir’s boat.

Jatgeir had been attracted to Eline, so much so that he calls his boat Eline, and for which he has been occasionally mcked. However, he never had any sort of relationship with.Eline and, as far as he knows, she does not know that he has named his boat after her. Eline moved awayfrom Vaim many years ago and married a fisherman and apparently had a child by him.Jatgeir has had no contact with her since the.

One day he decides to go toSund. It is even possible that the store there sells thread and needles.The lady in the store goes on a hunt and finds thread and a needle – and charges him 250 kroner. He is horrified but is too shy to object but is very bitter that he has, in his view, been cheated twice.

He goes to bed on his boat moored in the Sund harbour. In the middle of the night he is awoken by somebody calling his name. At first he thinks he is dreaming but when he is clearly awake and sitting up, he still appears to hear his name being called by a woman. He gets up and comes out of the boat and sees, standing on the jetty,Eline. He is not unreasonably very surprised.

It seems that she has run away from her husband, because he has decided to buy his own fishing boat which he can ill forward and she tells Jatgeir that she and Jatgeir have always been close to one another, which comes as some surprise to Jatgeir. It turns out that she has not had any children that she wants to escape with him and go back to Vaim. Indeed she is in something of a hurry because her husband, Frank, may return from his fishing trip at any moment. Indeed, as they leave the harbour the two boats cross.

We now change narrators and the story continues withElias. Elias seems to be even more of a solitary man than.Jatgeir. He too lives on his own in his parents’ former house. He does have two sisters but they have moved away. There seems to be little or no contact with them. We are now a few years ahead in the story and it seems that since Eline has moved in with Jatgeir the two old friends do not meet. He suspects that.Eline is the reason reason as she does not seem to take to him. One evening he is resting at home when he hears knocking at the door. He cannot imagine who would knock on a dark snowy night so he initially ignores it but then eventually goes to the door and opens it but sees nobody. He suspects the local youths of playing a trick on him and returns to his resting. There is resumed knocking and again he goes to the door and see no-one but then suddenlyJatgeir appears. Elias invites him in for coffee but Jatgeir says he has suddenly remembered something and has to leave which he does.

We now move onto the third narrator who is Frank. Lots of things have changed even though it is a small community. People have died, people have moved on and Frank is left living on his own many years ahead of the opening story.

As always with Fosse things do not always quite work out the way the characters want them to do and there is a sense of mystery. For example we have a ghost and other unusual anomalies. Both Frank and Jatgeirhave named their boat.Eline. Apart from Elias, the names we know the other three characters by are not in fact their real names but nicknames or other other changes. All four characters seem to be somewhat solitary. For at least some of the time they live in the house they have inherited from their deceased parents.

Eline is the dominant character. Once Eline has decided something, yes, then it’s just going to happen . To a considerable degree, she controls a life of both Jatgeir and Frank but they seem to accept it without too much problem.

This isFosse’s first novel since winning the Nobel Prize and another very fine novel it is too. The three main male characters seem to be caught up by fate and, to a certain degree by the women thecome in contact with, particularly.Eline. They live, they die, and life goes on.

First published in 2025 by Det Norske samlaget
First published in English in 2025 Fitzcarraldo
Translated by Damion Searls.