“In Solstad’s books about Bjørn Hansen, witty cultural pessimism and sheer obstinacy is transformed into the most beautiful literary qualities.”
Bjørn Ivar Fyksen, Klassekampen, Best of 2019
“Bjørn Hansen has slung a powerful no straight in the face of the elementary laws of existence. [Solstad’s] deliberations on why are always worth reading”
Ellen Engelstad, Klassekampen, Best of 2019
“No one can write as lightly about heavy subjects such as Christianity, doom, existentialism and atonement … a loaded literary energy bomb … It’s in these fractures in the surface that Solstad really shows his mastery as a writer. The same goes for all those precisely depicted details that are littered around this little novels … Few of his younger colleagues can compare with the literary energy collected between the covers of this book. Dag Solstad keeps up his own high level all the way to the end!”
6/6 stars, VG
“Brilliant … Rest assured that the book’s burlesque climax will be remembered clearly as one of Solstad’s greatest scenes. Still, it’s the existential gravity behind these scenes that lifts the text to a significant level. Perhaps it was only now, when Solstad with his eyes open engages in a dialogue with death, that the different threads of this oeuvre can be pulled together … Here we sense the brilliance of this writer. He offers us a construction that is as bizarre as anything, and we can’t help recognizing something deep down inside us. The entirely trivial embraces the greatest questions of the conditions of existence. We see the dizzying heights of our small lives. It’s a modest, joyful, outstanding novel Solstad offers his readers. In his quite unique way, he creates an ars moriendi – a tractate on the art of dying.
6/6 stars, Dagbladet
“To all of you who consider Dag Solstad one of the greatest European novelists after the war, and who love his stubborn prose and his explosively dry humour: My God, you have something to look forward to! To everybody else: Are you sure you’re not missing something? … The final scene of the novel is pure joy … It’s a scene we will laugh at, be moved by and discuss for a long time, and which should provide an opportunity to discuss the meaning of the tie in Dag Solstad’s unique body of work”
Dagsavisen
“Brilliant about a proud outsider … Together with memories and reflections that are elegantly weaved in throughout the book, he creates a whole character, which the reader gradually learns to know, empathize, almost understand – also without having read the two preceding novels about his bungled life … above all we are captivated, moved and entertained by the single, asocial and lonely main character himself … a brilliant, infatuating end to the trilogy of Bjørn Hansen, a high point in Solstad’s production with its masterful shifts of perspective. The literary character of Bjørn Hansen is now immortal”
6/6 stars, Stavanger Aftenblad
“The final sentence of the third novel about Bjørn Hansen is Solstad’s best ending since Novel 1987 …. a Solstad novel which is quite vital for being so thoroughly old-fashioned”
5/6 stars, Adresseavisen
“A whole little masterpiece”
5/6 stars, Fædrelandsvennen
“Third, and final, novel about Bjørn Hansen provides reasons for its own critical existence. The spinelessness and noise of our time, old age and the loneliness of death, the joy of being with another person. It’s all in this small book. So is God as the core of our notions about the world – whether we believe or not … classic, Solstadian comedy forces the reader to chuckle. Occasionally also laugh out loud. But don’t think we ever laugh at Bjørn Hansen: The equally Solstadian care for and empathy with his main character never yields an inch. The reader feels it and is moved. Bjørn Hansen isn’t just strange, like I indicated initially, he is a painfully recognizable human being.”
NRK P2
