The woman in the valley

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The woman in the valley (norw. Damen i dalen ) is a novel by Ketil Bjørnstad , which was published by Aschehoug in Oslo in 2009 .

Aksel Vinding from Oslo remembers events from 1971/72. After his promising debut as a pianist, the then 19-year-old widower Aksel will travel to Finnmark in Norway for a few months . There in the wilderness right on the border with the Soviet Union , the young man wins the love of the woman in the valley. Even in distant Oslo, 31-year-old Sigrun Liljerot, district doctor for Sør-Varanger , is named; probably because she lives in Pasvikdalen with her husband Eirik Kjosen - a muscular sports and music teacher.

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Sigrun, the sister of his 36-year-old wife Marianne, meets Aksel for the first time at his wife's funeral in Oslo. He is fascinated by the resemblance of the beautiful doctor both to her sister Marianne and to her daughter Anja, who also died.

That was in June 1971, on the day of Aksel's debut, when the dedicated gynecologist Marianne hanged herself in the basement of the Skoog villa - which is in Elvefaret outside Oslo. The pregnant widow had only secretly married Aksel in April 1971 in Vienna. Marianne's first husband, the wealthy Bror Skoog, shot himself in the basement of the Skoog house in 1970 when he found out about his wife's infidelity.

It was actually the Steinway wing in the Skoog house that brought Anja and Aksel together. Anja had become junior master in the piano division with “ Wedding Day on Troldhaugen ”. It did not stop at playing the piano together. Anja and Aksel had a relationship with each other that the first-person narrator is permanently silent about; as well as about the circumstances of Anja's suicide. Once he only suspects that after the junior champion Anja was expected too much. And Marianne took her own life because she couldn't get over the loss of Anja and Bror.

Before Aksel's steep career really began in Oslo in 1972, he attempted suicide immediately after Marianne's crime. The jazz musician Gabriel Holst fishes Aksel out of a river and calls the emergency doctor. After Aksel was released from the closed department of psychiatry by the psychiatrist Gudvin Säffle, he initially enjoyed his freedom to the fullest. Aksel discards all ambitious career plans of the piano teacher Selma Lunge and the concert agent W. Gude. He flies to the remote Finnmark. On the flight, the debutant is recognized by the music lover Gunnar Hoegh, director of A / S Sydvaranger. The director wants the pianist to play for a sandwich at one of his receptions. Aksel, who arrives at the invitation of sister-in-law Sigrun and brother-in-law Eirik, initially lives with the relatives and then in the neighboring dormitory of the boarding school where Eirik teaches. In the following months, the pianist not studied the B-flat concerto by Brahms one, as had fixed his two conveyor Oslo, but he devoted entirely to the Piano Concerto no. 2 by Rachmaninov . The nearby Soviet border invites you to meet the great Russian in several dream sequences. But Aksel doesn't just dream and practice. Occasionally he makes music with Sigrun. The doctor plays the violin professionally. Her parents refused to study music as a teenager. This compulsion had even emanated from the older sister Marianne and became the cause of a falling out between the sisters that could not be cemented. Sigrun had been pregnant in early 1971 but had lost her child shortly before Marianne's funeral. Sigrun hadn't had sex with Eirik for two years. Sigrun approves of the alcohol and has no objection to repeated sexual intercourse with Aksel. Every time after making music together - Eirik is meanwhile out and about with his students in the snow-covered birch forest - the two soloists move while standing, sitting or lying down. Sigrun only exposes himself to the extent necessary on the occasion.

When Sigrun confesses to her favorite musician, Aksel, that she has become pregnant again - this time allegedly by Gunnar Hoegh, the pianist leaves. In Oslo he continues his career, which will probably lead to London via Munich and Paris. He didn't graduate from high school or studied music. Not Brahms and Rachmaninoff not be made, but the A major concerto by Mozart .

Several reasons for Aksel's return to civilization could be enumerated. Behind one is the shipowner's daughter Rebecca Frost; a talented and extremely critical, carefully listening musician. Rebecca had shaken off her husband Christian, who was jealous of Aksel, and had left for a jazz concert tour through Finnmark with Gabriel Holst. The young medical student Rebecca had gone to bed with Aksel before Anja and had always loved the musician. In addition, Sigrun had recommended this unsentimental, passionate woman to her brother-in-law Aksel as a suitable permanent partner. It looks as if the future star pianist is following this recommendation.

Form and interpretation

Why did Anja kill herself? The first-person narrator cannot answer that basic question that moves the reader throughout the entire text, because he is not omniscient. He can only make vague assumptions - social criticism: In the social environment of the child prodigy Anja, more restraint might have been more beneficial for the career.

Although the author overloaded his work with secondary characters and plots, the reader will be well entertained - immersed in the world of doctors and musicians. But some things upset him. In a few places the political class gets in the way. In 1945 the Wehrmacht left scorched earth behind in northeastern Norway. Later, NATO and the Warsaw Pact collide in the valley of Frau Sigrun . The former are the good and the latter are the bad. Furthermore, Aksel's approach to the great Russian soul of Rachmaninoff on the Norwegian / Soviet border is felt to be superficially constructed. In this context, the transparent efforts of the writing pianist Bjørnstad to explain the nature of the music precisely should not be concealed. What is meant are, for example, the passages on how to play Rachmaninoff or Brahms.

Actually, a lot is allowed in the novel. For example, Aksel's grief at the beginning of the novel is overcome in an exhilarating manner. It begins with the almost drowned man being fished up from the bottom of the river by Gabriel Holst. Very unlikely, but funny - Aksel is hanging on a string. The fishhook has penetrated the palate of the unsuccessful suicide. Aksel's subsequent encounters with his lifesaver are worth reading in this context. Macabre humor dominates.

The chapter headings in the three parts and the epilogue of the novel put the reader in the mood for the following lines in a school essay fashion.

Editions in German

Used edition

  • Ketil Bjørnstad: The woman in the valley. Translated from the Norwegian by Lothar Schneider. Insel Verlag, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-458-17477-6 . (it 4092, 1st edition. 2011)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ engl. Aschehoug
  2. ↑ Edition used, p. 6 above
  3. ↑ mentioned as a red link in the head sentence of the Norwegian article Petsjenga
  4. ↑ Grieg: Wedding day on Troldhaugen - Hans-Dieter Karras in 1976 at the Führer organ in the St. Maria monastery church, Riddagshausen
  5. ↑ engl. Sydvaranger
  6. ↑ 2nd piano concerto from Brahms excerpts
  7. ↑ Wilfried Lingenberg plays the Piano Concerto No. 2 by Rachmaninoff
  8. ↑ Some interpretations:
    KV 488 1st movement: Allegro - Lars Vogt plays with the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg under Ivor Bolton
    KV 488 Adagio
    KV 488 Nina Viatkina-Bönte plays the 3rd movement
    KV 488 Till Fellner plays with the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg under Hubert Soudant
  9. ↑ Edition used, pp. 209–213 and p. 261.