When the sun goes down

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When the sun goes down (Norwegian: Når sol går ned ) is a novel from 1895 by the Norwegian author Jonas Lie (1833–1908).

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When the sun goes down , Jonas Lie is set in 1895 in a small, provincial Norwegian coastal town. As is so often the case with Lie, the subject of the novel is marriage and love . The focus is on the medical officer and his wife, who plays the piano, loves luxury and is known in the city for the fact that she still likes to flirt even at forty. At the beginning of the story, a friend of the house, Wingaard, persuades her to go to a concert and do it with him. Again and again she refuses, referring to her time-consuming role as a housewife and mother. But then the medical officer protests and emphasizes her complete freedom. This is repeated over and over again, until the woman even goes to a violin concert in Kristiania ( Oslo ) with Wingaard overnight . The medical officer shows his full confidence, but completely different things are going on in him. After all, the evidence is clear that the wife is having an affair, but he refuses to believe it. Instead, he begins to philosophize in increasing nervous excitement about the fact that a fateful witch test like in the Middle Ages would have to be carried out on certain women. The idea would have been good in itself, only they would have used the wrong means back then. This then happens with a tragic outcome. All of this is observed by the increasingly concerned grandfather, who recently became a widower. He is still thinking about his marriage because his wife told him on his deathbed that she would forgive him for everything. He can't understand that. The third love story in the novel is that of the young daughter of the house who is courted by the pharmacist's son. However, the atmosphere in the house makes her extremely intimidated and only at the end do they come together. These two embody hope for a better future. So the novel doesn't end darkly.

Classification in the work

When the sun goes down it is Jonas Lie's last creative period. In this, on the one hand, he takes up the spiritual theme of his debut The Spirit Seer , on the other hand, he is primarily interested in the demonic abysses in humans. This phase began with the work with the telling title Evil Powers .

reception

When the sun goes down was generally rated positively when it was published, especially in formal terms due to the masterful interweaving of the various narrative threads. However, some found the plot too spectacular and too detective novel-like. Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson accused his old friend Jonas Lie of reading too many French novels. Such aesthetic and also hidden moral arguments are no longer used today. Today the novel is considered a classic precisely because of its unusualness.

expenditure

literature

  • Petter Aaslestad: Logisk og etisk sannsynlighet i Jonas Lie: Naar sol gaar ned . In: TijdSchrift voor Skandinavistiek , Vol. 9, № 1–2 (1988).
  • Petter Aaslestad: Dømt til art. Jonas Lies romaner 1884-1905 , Studia humaniora series № 8, Universitetsforlaget, Oslo 1992
  • Martin Abraham. Epilogue to the 2012 translation

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