By Kohinoor Dasgupta
Morning and Evening by Jon Fosse was originally published as Morgon og kveld by Samlaget in 2000. The English version published by Dalkey Archive Press, translated by Damion Searls, came out fifteen years later.
The ninety-odd pages of Morning and Evening probably would not require more than a couple of days, even if readers are unable to devote hours at a stretch. Fosse pulls in his readers with his paragraph-less prose. In a while, words are redundant, you experience the time ticking away in the novella. Nothing new is being said, you know it all, you have heard, seen, felt, gone through parts of, and read and thought about the cycle of life. And yet you do not want to step out of his spell.
Olai, a fisherman like his father Johannes, lives on the island of Holmen. The novella opens on a momentous day in Olai’s life. He awaits the birth of his second child. Marta and Olai have a lovely daughter, Magda, who is a young adult. The second pregnancy was unexpected. Olai is anxious, excited, like any would-be dad. He thinks it will be a boy. He wants to name him Johannes, after his father.
On the mainland, maybe on this very day, dark and wintry, Olai’s father Johannes feels unusually vigorous. Though his heart sinks every now and then thinking about his wife Erna, who died in her sleep in the recent past, he rolls a cigarette, drinks coffee (thanks to Social Security, coffee is not a luxury in old age) and nibbles on bread and cheese. He has an urge to see the worn-out things in his toolshed out in the yard and he even climbs up to the crawlspace in the house to look at the accumulated stuff there. Erna and Johannes raised seven children in the house. Missing Erna, Johannes looks around for her among the things she used daily, for years at a time, during different phases of a long marriage.
As Erna is lost, so too is Johannes. Long vanished is the burly fisherman whose daily labor yielded a livelihood, albeit a chancy one. The sight of his tools, his fishing gear, gives a certain solidity and dignity to the frail apparition of a man that Johannes has become. It was worth it, then, the life he lived with Erna. They were worthwhile. They eked out a living. They raised seven children, all of whom turned out well.
The house stands sentinel over Johanne’s memories of work and a relentless routine. Memories of great joy and great trouble alike, if there were ever such, as well as memories of good times with a houseful of children, have faded away. The recent past is more vivid in memory. Something like happiness bloomed then, in Erna’s company, thanks to the small safeties and dignity made possible by Social Security. Erna’s sudden death was a blow. Johannes misses being taken care of, the welcome of a lit porch and warm food, even the bickering. He is lonely even though a caring daughter, Signe, lives close by with her family.
His extraordinary vitality this morning vivifies a distant time, a happiness that was not even a thing at the time, it was so constant, so natural and brash. That was when he and Peter, his friend, were youngsters who were starting to make a living from the sea like their forefathers. The dreamy light of that time plays tricks with Johannes today.
"Morning and Evening is a novel concerning the beautiful dream that our lives have meaning,” says the blurb. It reminds me of a rhyme we were taught in kindergarten in Calcutta, India:
Row, row, row your boat
Gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily merrily,
Life is but a dream.
Meanwhile, at Holmen, a baby boy was born in the beginning of the novella. He will be called Johannes, after his grandfather. Though Olai does not believe that a benevolent, puissant God presides over the iniquitous world of his experiences, today his life has a new gusto, a new miracle sees the light of day in the shape of baby Johannes.
Olai is also a fisherman. Magda promises to be another edition of sensible and loving Signe. The house they live in was built by Olai before he married Marta. It has already gathered many markers of this family’s passage through life. Either because he is still young, or because he is different from his father Johannes, Olai comes across as a man more comfortable with feeling and thinking than his dad. Although life has not been idyllic (“he has never doubted that Satan rules this world as much as the good Lord does”) Olai is capable of dreaming.
Morning and Evening by Jon Fosse
Translated by Damion Searls
Published by Dalkey Archive Press in their Norwegian Literature Series.
Partially funded by the Illinois Arts Council; published with the financial support of NORLA (Norwegian Literature Abroad) Foundation
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