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Kjartan Fløgstad about himself

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Bergens Tidende 26. okt. 1972 Rune Sørland "Fangliner" ("Ropes") "...Kjartan Fløgstad is a young author who has received much praise for his books: the poetry collections "Seremonier" ("ceremonies") and "Valfart" ("pilgrimage"), and the prose work "Den hemmelege jubel" ("the secret exultation"). With the short story collection "Fangliner" he fortifies his position as one of the most exhilarating, versatile and original writers in our country... .... In the title "Fangliner" I discern a kind of naturalistic program: Allow the estranged contemporary with the working-class background speak for himself and show how interests, lifestyle, speech habits and beliefs are formed by work and environment. The result? Convincing. This is a complex and unorthodox book so full of literary marrow that one's desire to read on never falters..."	Bergens Tidende 20.sept. 1977 Rune Sørland "Dalen Portland" (English title -"Dollar Road") "...So much attention evokes a healthy scepticism among newspaper readers: Is it the emperor with no clothes out for a stroll, applauded by self-appointed literary experts? My answer is no. If this answer does not suffice, then read the book before you proffer your own answer. True enough, "Dollar Road" is a carnevalistic novel-of-excess, but Fløgstand's role is not that of emperor. To the contrary, he plays the roles of juggler and interpreter. The juggler is operating an advanced novelistic masquerade while writing playfully, effortlessly, and powerfully well. With credibility and solidarity the interpreter conveys the beliefs and dreams of people belonging to the working class of western Norway..."
Dagbladet 14.sept. 1977 Knut Faldbakken "Dalen Portland" ("Dollar Road") "...because "Dalen Portland" is so much more than a story. The novel is a grand attempt to hack out a piece of post-war history. It is a slice of Norwegian culture, complete with fjords and waterfalls, farmers and executives, economic circumstances and political evolution. A physical image of the people's soul, stretched out on capitalistic vectors. To attempt so much in a single novel is, of course, bold, but what is amazing about Fløgstad's book is that he manages it. He succeeds thanks to his stylistic gift which makes it possible for him to wind his story from descriptive, emotive images to the statistics of concrete life, from the halting poetry of direct speech to western Norwegian (not to mention Latin American) monikers and their mystical magic, without losing grip or direction in what he wishes to tell. And what he wishes to tell are stories about working people in western Norway, which at the same time relate the story of the working people in Norway, how their lives appear from the inside and are controlled from without, how each and every one of the many colourful - and not so colourful - destinies coincide with the economic, political, psychological and social lines of power which we have learned to call our History..."	Dagbladet 5.sept. 1980 Knut Faldbakken "Fyr og flamme" ("fire and flame") "...Those who have been busy predicting a depoliticisation of Norwegian literature in the'80's should read Kjartan Fløgstad's latest novel. True enough, he writes of the sea, death, and love, but he does it in such a way that the reader realizes that not even these sanctuaries for untainted poetic contemplation and metaphysical ambience will in the future escape the net of political, economic and social relations which twine themselves tighter and tighter around our existences. Which for that matter they never have, except in certain enraptured authors' representations. But Fløgstad's book makes this even more apparent for those who already knew it, and demonstrates it conclusively for those who were still a little unsure. Because it is exactly this net he wishes to write about. The interrelationships, how, from without, they influence and control everything and everyone. It is this that makes the hefty novel "Fyr og flamme" a novel about History. Furthermore, what hoists Fløgstad and his book head and shoulders over most other Norwegian authors with novels that employ History for their depictions of reality is that he replaces ideology with knowledge and wisdom, and dogmatism with fantasy and ingenuity. He populates his stories with living people, at the same time as he lets History's intricacy give life to these individuals and determine the courses of their lives, not as mechanical fate, but as paradoxical logic..."
Politiken 12.jan. 1991 Søren Vinterberg "Det 7.klima" ("the seventh climate") "..."Det 7.klima" is as elaborate and endless as a fractal image, therefore one must clothe oneself well and undertake the literary voyage across the pages. Vulgar as a privy wall and learned as a lexicon, a superb accomplishment in the cultural critics' and linguistic stew's unfettered genre jumble. A masterpiece of desperanto literature..."	Dagbladet 14.sept. 1994 Brikt Jensen "Fimbul" "...The linguistic pranks may perplex the reader and the superficial character descriptions confuse him, but no one can be deceived as to Fløgstad's incredible linguistic fantasy (which he shares with the young Nils Voren in the novel), about the self-reckoning and pessimism, even though the setting is 1978 and the awarding of the Nobel peace prize to Begin and Sadat..." "..."Fimbul" is full of delicate subtexts, allusions, hidden and not quite so hidden references..."
Jyllands-posten 4.okt. 1994 Preben Meulengracht "Fimbul" "...The novel is astonishingly rich in its concise language, its brilliant images and symbols, its intellectual strength, humour and intense poetry, e.g. in the compelling accounts of the terrorists' ski trek through the Norwegian winter to Oslo. It is a lavish and generous novel, e.g. in the minor characters' detailed stories, in the long digressions, in the fictional ruptures and in the unexpected shifts between the fantastic, the mystical and the realistic. Regardless, the reader is riveted from first to last page by the suspense, the humour, and a dizzying philosophy in which Fløgstad masterfully blends a boundless wisdom with a groundless one..."	Politiken 2. okt. 1999 Søren Vinterberg "Plat og krone" (Kron og mynt/"heads or tails") "...This powerful chronicle is marvellous in its scope, a pleasure tour to astrology's, geology's and art history's most exotic subdivisions. A intensely energetic satire about modern academic illusionism, packed with wordplays and corny jokes. And inside, behind all the cynical facades and comic fables, a teeth-grinding wrench of a time where money is mixed with morality, so that good and evil, up and down, and heaven and hell are reduced to a question of heads or tails..."
Dag og Tid 17.sept. 1998 Otto Hageberg "Kron og mynt" ("heads or tails") "...Here we find high lyric and incomparable nature portrayals; here is encountered burlesque humour and drastic scenarios, among others a resplendent tattoo technique in more than one meaning, scenes that lack equal. Here is baroque exaggeration, and it wouldn't be Fløgstad if there weren't also countless puns. Here is tremendous humour, sudden ironic jabs, small contributions to the literary debate ("lector in the sunset" as the dominating subtext), good-natured parodies, for instance Dag Solstad's use of names in "Roman 1987". But here are also perfidious parodies and searing lampoon-like impalements of contemporary phenomena, with magnificent "portraits" of persons or figures that are both "realistic" and magical-adventurous at the same time..."	Bergen Tidende 18.nov. 1999 Jon Askeland "Eld og vatn" ("fire and water") "...The theme is expansive, a 400-year saga, the sources many, but spread and forgotten and signs of the missing have been difficult to track down. Yet Fløgstad has managed it: with a compelling style he has plucked forth from oblivion dust-covered events and anonymous fates, creating a mosaic of "exemplary" life stories which he knits tighter together with large synthesizing sweeps and use of mystical-literary allusions..." Translated by Deborah Miller

© Bergen Off. Bibliotek Last updated 15 March 2000 by Dagny Eide, Henrik Kiiehn Nielsen and Eli Randmo