Vaim

Nobel winner Fosse (Septology) centers this spectacular story of loneliness, love, and death on three linked characters living in small-town Norway. It begins with Jatgeir, a middle-aged bachelor in Vaim, a village on the Sygnefjord. During a visit to Bergen on his prized motorboat, Eline, he’s painfully aware of being clocked by shopkeepers as a “dumb hick from Strileland,” even though he’s not from those coastal islands. That night, after a stop for dinner on one of the islands, Sund, Jatgeir has a strange and miraculous encounter with Eline, whom he always loved and had just been thinking about. They grew up in Vaim together, and he was mercilessly mocked for naming his boat after her, especially after she left town and married a Sund fisherman named Frank. Now, Eline wants a ride home fast; she’s desperate to escape her unhappy marriage before Frank returns from a fishing expedition. It would ruin this endlessly magical and surprising novel to summarize what happens next, as the narration shifts from Jatgeir to Eline and finally to Frank, the latter summing it all up with understated humor when he considers having his epitaph read, “all was strange.” Jatgeir’s sections also contain indelible turns of phrase, as when he wonders if he’s imagining Eline’s reappearance: “reality is in the dream the way the boat is in the water.” This is unforgettable. (Oct.)