A New Name, VI-VII - Jon Fosse's concluding novel following The Other Name, I-II and I Is Another, III-V forming his Septology I-VII (the Roman numerals indicate the time span of the novel, seven days of the week beginning on Sunday). The Norwegian author views his work as a cohesive whole where a reader will, ideally, read A New Name after having read The Other Name and I Is Another. Reading the novels in sequence makes abundant sense since the entire Septology is, in the main, one continuous sentence written in fluid, mesmerizing stream of consciousness.
Similar to the two previous novels, A New Name begins with artist Asle standing before the painting in his studio where two thick, dripping diagonal lines cross in the middle, one brown line and one purple line. And Asle reflects he's spent his entire life painting ever since he was a boy and now, for the first time in his long life, he doesn't want to paint any longer.
“and I think that I want to get rid of this painting and get rid of the easel, the tubes of oil paint, yes, everything, yes, I want to get rid of everything on the table in the main room, everything that has to do with painting in this room that's been both a living room and a painting studio, and that's how it's been since Ales and I moved in here so long ago, so long ago, because it's all just disturbing me now and I need to get rid of it, get it out of here, and I don't understand what's happened to me but something has, something has happened.”
Ales is Asle's now-dead wife, his soulmate, his lover, who died way too young. The above quote is pivotal and sets the tone for the entire novel – old Asle is on the cusp of a life-changing transformation with echoes of the words of a key author to Asle, Christian mystic Meister Eckhart - “And suddenly you know: It's time to start something new and trust the magic of beginnings.”
A New Name is a magnificent novel where we encounter Asle's stream of artistic and spiritual consciousness beginning with his brooding over his painting on Friday to the last page where, on Saturday, he's on a small boat with his friend crossing a body of water, a gushing, hypnotic mindstream incorporating the following:
The Everyday - Many of Asle's reflection in the novel focus on his time as a younger adult – sadness over his Grandmother's death, reading art books as part of his education at The Art School, dealing with his overly judgemental landlady who will not allow Ales into his apartment - “but she takes for granted that people know the rules of proper behaviour, she would have thought they'd go without saying.” Such commonplace happenings ground the work and give all phases of Asle's life more solidity, roundness and depth.
The Other Asle – Nowhere in the novel is shifting from first-person to third-person, from actual events to imagination and a blurring of Asle's identity more apparent then when Asle thinks of the complex life of his namesake, the other Asle, currently in intensive care in a hospital after blacking out drunk on the street. “The thought that he's going home to another woman drives her completely crazy, Siv says and Asle says that he'll come here, he'll move in with her and Siv says that he and Liv are married and he says he'll have to get a divorce and she says that'll take a long time, first he'll have to separate and then it takes a year or so and only then will he be able to get divorced.” With the inclusion of the other Asle, Jon Fosse, an author who has been married three times himself, spins pregnant possibilities (or, perhaps, actualities) for his main character.
Love – The memory of those tender times with Ales become even more of a presence in A New Name, as, for example, when Asle and Ales are together at a coffeehouse shortly after they've met - “and she says that today is one of the great days, one of the days when something happens, yes, an event, because it's so strange, day after day goes by and it's like time is just passing, but then something happens, and when it happens the time passes slowly.” And also those times when Asle recognizes that he's alone - “no more than I understand how when I wake up in the middle of the night it's always like Ales is lying in bed next to me, always, I wake up and then it takes some time before I understand that she's not there.” I wouldn't want to push the point too far but I suspect Asle giving up painting is closely tied in with his linking his painting with thoughts of Ales, and his thinking has become not only mildly upsetting but excruciatingly painful, almost like a form of torture.
Art – After all those years, Asle still vividly recalls the words of his professor at The Art School, words that form a cantus firmus in his viewing his own art “the greatest artists do something different, they bring something new into the world with their own unique quality, their entirely unique art, yes, they create a new way of seeing that no one has ever known before.” And, as an old man, Asle reflects back on his art - “it's like everything that's happening around him, in the real world, goes away and it's like he sees nothing but that picture, and why do pictures get stuck in his head like that?...and it's to get rid of these pictures that he paints...and it's what the picture says that he tries to paint, yes, to make it go away, and in a way the picture kind of turns into part of himself.” A question worth pondering: What's the connection of Asle's thinking here with his removal of that painting in his studio, the painting of two large dripping lines forming a St. Andrew's Cross?
Myth – Asle's dog is Bragi and his friend's name is Åsleik. In Norse mythology, the god of poetry is Bragi who was revered for his wisdom. And Åsleik means both god and joke. And there is a definite sense of timelessness in Septology (no mention of things like computers or cell phones) that lifts Jon Fosse's fiction to the realm of the mythic, a work of epic proportion.
Spirit – Similar to Asle's large canvas with two dripping lines, so, from the first pages, Asle's life drips with thoughts and feelings of knowing God in the mystical way Meister Eckhart knew God, as when Asle thinks: “I want everything to stay perfectly silent, I want a silence to come falling down over everything that exists, and also me, yes, over me, yes, let a silence snow down and cover me...I will be empty, just empty, I will become a silent nothing, a silent darkness.” Will Asle reach something approaching the peace of silent darkness as he crosses that body of water with his friend? Travel with Asle via A New Name to discover for yourself.
Norwegian author Jon Fosse, born 1959
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