”Lively yet exposed. Kirsti Blom is an unusually unpredictable author. But combining the animate with the vulnerable is a trait in her writing … Part of Kirsti Blom’s strength as a writer lies in her ability to take unusual settings and make them intimate and sensual … Grabbing hold of life, liberating oneself from what seems predestined to find one’s own path – this seems to be part of this novel’s thematic core. But there is also joy in the depiction of the old man who chooses to take his life into his own hands. Celebrating life is an essential part of this novel … In Det som svarer the desire to grab hold of life is the crux of the novel”
Hamar Arbeiderblad
”A strange yet powerful, hypnotic and beautiful paean to life. Such effects are combined in this perfect and very carefully composed work by Kirsti Blom … Experiencing nature occupies a prominent place in the novel and is depicted skillfully using varied, beautiful language, with her daring to use unusual and antiquated phrases and expressions which create poetry, beauty and life … The reader is drawn into the hypnotic, seductive style, which only tells us the most necessary … This book may well depict the passage of a normal, good person towards death, but it is also a fabulous paean to life”
Aftenposten
”Kirsti Blom writes in such a heartfelt way about this elderly man’s lonely journey to find peace in his soul after his wife’s death that the longing he feels sits like a stone in the stomach – in the reader’s stomach, too … a well wrought novel which leaves a lasting impression on readers”
Adresseavisen
”Kirsti Blom offers readers one of this year’s most powerful books – a beautifully sad novel about a fat, elderly man on his final journey … It is as if the author had painted the whole work using the finest of brushstrokes. The text is delicate and poetic, yet leaves room for the impure and taboo … Kirsti Blom is so conscious of language and detail that her book might well have ended up being a mere exercise in style. But she weaves this so well into her material that the text is imbued with a pure and sensitive intimacy. Reading a novel which does not have a single, weak sentence is in itself an experience. But when the novel also expresses how something good always emerges, even for people about to die a lonely death, then it’s beautifully poignant. This is exquisite”
Nationen
