Poem post: Jon Fosse, from "Dreamed in Stone"

[radiantfracture]

Since I am to have an impromptu connection with Norway, here is a poem by Norwegian writer Jon Fosse, the 2023 Nobel Laureate.

Full text on the Granta website. I had not heard of him before exactly now, and I like this.

* * * * *



I

No one saw the avalanche because it all fell apart so slowly. Not day by day, not even hour by hour, or minute by minute, but it fell apart. It was falling apart the whole time, and it was an avalanche. It had to be an avalanche, because what else could it be?

But did it slide like mud?

No, it didn’t slide like mud, it was more like a sudden imperceptible jolt.

But someone must have seen it?

No, no one. Or maybe someone did but they didn’t want to. Or maybe no one saw it. The jolts were too quick, jolt after jolt.

But in that case you can’t really call it an avalanche?

Yes, it was an avalanche, it was an avalanche.

Was there a flaw in the middle somewhere?

Why do you ask that?

I think it happened because there was a flaw somewhere that finally made it come apart.

Maybe, but I think there were lots of smaller cracks, not a big one, lots of almost invisible cracks.

Yes, it could have been like that. But these small almost invisible cracks somehow combined into a big crack, a chasm almost.

There is something almost like joy in your voice.

A chasm.

Yes, yes, like a chasm.

II



I can’t stop thinking about how it fell apart so slowly, so imperceptibly slowly.

Yes, you’ve already said that.

Yes.

But the avalanche itself, it really came so suddenly.

Yes.

Yes. And you’re saying there were several avalanches and then it just lay there.

I just lay there.

You just lay there.

Yes I just lay there, on the front steps of my house.

And then?

And then someone said something and I tried to get up, but I couldn’t, and someone helped me get up. I stood there. Then I opened a door. I went in and shut the door behind me.

And then?

I don’t remember anything. I remember that I woke up and I was lying on the floor inside. I got up. I was standing. I walked.

And then?

I thought I had to go and lie down.

Yes.

Yes. And then I woke up again. I was lying next to the kitchen table. And then I thought I had to go and lie down. I got up. I was standing. I found the sofa and lay down.

* * * * * *

What I like here is the gentle surrealism, the negotiating of an experience that seems both concrete and numinous, the almost-prose uplifted by detail and repetition rather than conventional lyricism.

{rf}

Comments

[sovay]

Yes, yes, like a chasm.

I've never read this; thank you.

[asakiyume]

I see what you mean by seeming both concrete and numinous. The waking and re-waking. I've had that in dreams. Wake up, but you're still dreaming. Wake up again. It does raise the question...