ISBN 1-905147-16-3. The Conqueror is the second in a trilogy by Norwegian author Jan Kjaerstad. The first volume, The Seducer, certainly seduced me. I read it when the English translation was published in 2003. That first volume hooked me before I even opened the book. On the back cover the blurb begins
So how do the pieces of a life fit together? Or, to put it another way: do they fit together at all?
Well, this is an idea which really intrigues me. I often think we have so many roles, so many aspects, so many threads running in our lives that it’s quite a challenge to see how it all fits together. Every time I sit with a new patient I’m doing the same thing – collecting the pieces of their lives, the fragments of their stories and trying to piece it all together, to make sense of it. The novel tells the story of one Jonas Wergeland, a famous Norwegian TV producer who arrives home to find his wife dead on the lounge floor. Shot. He is arrested and charged with her murder. The whole of the 600 pages of that first volume is made up of dozens of stories that try to explain how Jonas ended up at this juncture. By the end of the book we don’t know if he has been found guilty. The quality of the writing and the way he built up an understanding of Jonas by the telling of multiple stories of his life completely enthralled me. It’s taken four years to get volume two, The Conqueror, translated into English.
In The Conqueror we are made aware that Jonas has indeed been found guilty and Jan Kjaerstad uses the same technique to try to explain how a great TV producer, revered by a whole nation, could end up killing his wife. Here are a couple of lines from The Conqueror that will explain why this book so captures me as a reader
Maybe our existence is best understood as a story.
I don’t know any other way to understand either my existence or that of another. We construct ourselves and we communicate our private subjective unique experience of living through telling stories.
For so it is: even though life is lived forward, it is always understood backward. You turn around and behold – in awe or fear – a pattern that you are not aware of having made.
Isn’t that so true? This man writes beautifully. I find his novels totally addictive. And how long will it be until the third and last part of this trilogy comes out in English? I suspect it’ll be around 2011! Well, you know what? I’ll content myself with a re-read or two of The Seducer AND The Conqueror while I wait!
There are many lines in The Conqueror that I’ve noted down and want to say something about. I’ll take them individually in separate posts (first of all over the next few days, then, probably, as I re-read these books, over the next few months). If you love stories, layers and layers of stories that develop an understanding of a person’s life, and you love good writing, I’d recommend you buy these novels and treat yourself.
This blog is titled “Heroes Not Zombies” because I have this belief that most of us sleepwalk through most of our lives, on automatic pilot, and that life can be better for any of us if we wake up, become more aware, more reflective and more creative. In short, the best kind of life is the one where we are the heroes of our own unique stories. Here’s Jan Kjaerstad again
Because most heroic tales can awaken forces which until then have lain fettered inside a person.
The BIG work of the main character of these novels, Jonas the TV producer, is his documentary series on Great Norwegians. As each episode is described, another Norwegian hero’s life and significance is manifested to the whole, hooked nation. Norwegians are described in the novels as a nation of spectators and the spectacle of this series on national heroes is what makes Jonas’ reputation. Every episode captured my imagination so much that I swung between wishing the series had been real so I could actually buy the DVD and watch it, and feeling I had seen and heard every detail in the author’s wonderful descriptions anyway.
This is a book which will make you think. It’ll make you think about stories and how we use them to understand ourselves and others. It’ll make you think this
But no occurrence, no day in a person’s life is so trivial that it might not be crucial. Important things happen all the time………all days are in a way, holy days.
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Heroes Not Zombies 