Of Life on Earth
A life can be told in many different versions. Of Life on Earth is the story of the artist and farmer’s son Tormod as a young man, where certain visions – such as his first encounter with a wood nymph – have a powerful impact on his relationship to his surroundings, to women to school and learning and to thinking. In his teens, Tormod is critical towards people and to life on earth, to industry and mass production and to life in the electric age. He will show them that he is a man who knows how to work. From an early age, Tormod gets the feeling that he is being oppressed by somebody else’s hope of who he should be. His temper is like an unstable power, a smoldering ember that suddenly can ignite and burst into a raging fire.
Tormod Haugland’s latest novels have had brilliant reviews. Through exuberant prose, understated humor and unfettered associative power, Haugland has created a deeply original form of autobiographical fiction. Of Life on Earth deals with youth, love, sexuality and school. At the same time, it is also a novel of different forms of estrangement and about the relationship between life and death.
