We arrived at the café and sat down. What’s up? I said at length.
She said she was shocked that my first comment after seeing an epic like that could be so cynical and so unaffected by the marvellous story I had just been immersed in.
Immersed? I’m not so sure about that, I said. We’ve seen an unusually expensive film about trolls. It was exciting. And I’m happy I’ve seen that side of life which means so much to you.
She said she couldn’t accept that and it confirmed to her that the distance between her and me was as great as she feared, or if possible, even greater.
What do you want me to say? I asked.
We’ve seen a tale about good and evil, my daughter said. Do you feel nothing in your heart?
Yes, I certainly do. I’ve already said it was exciting. I understand that the ring is treacherous and that many people want to get hold of it, and it was very well done, he, what’s his name, the transparent one who eats fish …?
Gollum, she said.
That’s the one, I said. He was very well done. I don’t quite know how they did it, but it was impressive. And the battle scenes were great and everything.
Do you know what your problem is, Dad? she said.
I shook my head.
You don’t like people, she said. You’re not a people person.
And that’s why I don’t like you.
She got up and left.
She finished with me as if I were her boyfriend. That was actually quite impressive. For a moment I was almost proud of her. There goes my daughter, I thought, as she departed. She’ll make out fine. Afterwards I ordered a beer and filed the event in the folder for irrational behaviour, thinking that in a couple of days she would be herself again. And indeed she was, more or less.
But lying there in the heather a few days later feeling the pain in my hip and the sun on my face I realised that my daughter was right.
I don’t like people.
I don’t like what they do. I don’t like what they are. I don’t like what they say.
My daughter had put her finger on my affliction. She had put words to something I had been trying to avoid coming to terms with for a long time. In recent years I had gradually distanced myself more and more from the people around me. I had lost interest in my work and also to some extent in my home. My wife had commented on this several times. She thought there was something wrong with her and I let her believe that for want of a better explanation. Admitting that it’s you there’s something wrong with is totally untenable. At any rate, as long as there’s someone else ready to take the blame. I found myself almost constantly in a state where I registered what was going on in the world, but it never crossed my mind that it might have anything to do with me. And my daughter, in her elf outfit, said it did and hit the nail on the head.
I lay in the heather for a long time that afternoon. I threw up a couple of times and when after a while I got hungry I tried to knock down a squirrel with my cycle pump, but I failed. And then my wife rang wondering what had happened to me. I’ve fallen off my bike, I said, and tried to get to my feet. I managed somehow. I’m coming now, I said, and began to limp homewards supporting myself on my bike.
I had extensive grazing and a bruise which was yellow and reddish and the size of a wienerschnitzel, or something like that, and what I presumed was some kind of concussion. My wife bandaged the wounds and I said it wasn’t her there was something wrong with, it was me. Oh yes, she said. What’s wrong then? It’s a bit too early to say, I said. But I was thinking a bit when I was lying in the forest. Good, she said.
The following days I didn’t go to work. I got a sick note from the doctor and was told to take it easy for a week or two.
My daughter continued to watch Lord of The Rings again and again, and she made it clear she didn’t want any more sarcastic comments from me, and my son, Gregus, God knows why I ever agreed to him being called that, watched his excruciating videos at all hours of the day and night when he wasn’t in the nursery school. God bless the nursery school.
One day when my sick note was drawing to a close I began to flick through a pile of papers and pictures my mother had given me after my father had died. There were receipts and notes and lots of pictures of toilets, of all things. I rang my mother who explained that dad had been in the habit of taking pictures of toilets he had used in the final years of his life. He had never explained why he had taken the snaps and kept shtum. The result was hundreds of photos of toilets and trees and rocks and other places where you might have a piss outdoors. It struck me that I knew him even less well than I thought, but I liked the pictures and the thought of him having taken photos of all the places he’d had a piss. It was just like him. My father, the toilet photographer. As a consequence of this, or as a consequence of the feeling all this created in me, or at least hopefully as a consequence of something or other which had to do with something, I packed my bag on what seemed to be a sudden impulse, and which still feels like that, and wandered into the forest. I left a note on the kitchen worktop in which I briefly explained that I had gone for a walk in the forest and didn’t know how long I would be gone but they shouldn’t expect me for dinner. That’s about six months ago now and I’ve only seen my wife a handful of times since then. She’s been up to the tent twice to have sex and to persuade me to go home, and even though I’ve promised her both times to do so, I haven’t. I say I’ll go but I don’t. I suppose, in a way, it’s close to a lie, but so what, it’s my life and I need to be in the forest for a while.
My wife is concerned by what people think and believe, as she says. It doesn’t bother me any more. Nothing could bother me less than what people think. People can think what they like. In general I don’t like them anyway and seldom respect their opinions. I haven’t had any interest in our so-called friends for a long time. They pop by to see us and we them. It’s an eternal hassle with dinners and kids and weekend walking trips and rented houses in the summer. And of course I’ve always strung along and as a result in a despicable way been part and parcel of it. That must have made them think when I headed for the woods. Doppler, of all people, they must have thought. A good job, a nice family and a big house in the process of being tastefully redecorated; and what should I say to those who ask? my wife has said several times with desperation in her voice. Say what you want, I said. Say that I’ve become manically obsessed with flora and fauna, say that I’ve gone mad. Say what you want.
I realise that my behaviour has been very trying for my wife and I’ve tried to explain that my little adventure has nothing to do with her. That’s difficult for her to believe, I’ve noticed. At the start she suspected I had something going with another woman, but she doesn’t think so any longer. Now, in a sense, she has resigned herself to the fact that I live in a tent even though she doesn’t understand why. In good times and bad, they said when we got married. The problem with this is, of course, that any one time can be good for one person and bad for the other.
I’m pregnant, she then said, as we stood in front of the packet soup shelf in Norway’s biggest ICA supermarket.
Crikey, I said. Again? We’ve barely had any sex since I moved out into the tent. As I said, it could only be a matter of two or three times. She came to see me at night and left again after a short session during which she could hardly be bothered to remove her outer clothing.
Due in May, she said. And if you’re not back home by then you can forget the whole thing. Then it’s over. Got it?
I hear what you’re saying, I said.
And I’m sick of being on my own with the kids and not having your income any more, she said.
I understand that, too, I said. But I don’t live in the forest for fun. I live in the forest because I have to be in the forest and you don’t have the wherewithal to understand that because you’ve never felt that you have to be in the forest. And you always function so well and I function so badly, and you like mixing with people and it’s easy for you, but I don’t like to
do that and it’s difficult for me.
You’re getting to be just like your father, she said, turning on her heel.
May was the last word I heard her say. And she stopped and repeated it. May.
Available now
About this Book
Lazy days… Long, hot nights… Deep, dark thoughts…
Meet Bror Telemann.
42 years old. Husband to Nina Telemann. Father to Heidi, Berthold and Sabine. Currently: stage director at the Norwegian National Theatre. Soon to be: world-famous playwright and general talking head.
Now he’s on holiday with his family at the foot of the Alps, south of Munich. That’s in Germany. Nina loves Germany. Telemann does not. Telemann loves Nigella Lawson.
Ahem... he loves the theatre.
That’s better.
So, whilst his wife and children frolic in the dusky sunshine with lederhosen-sporting, schnitzel-scoffing locals, Telemann prefers to spend his time thinking about theatre...
...except when his mind wanders...
again.
Subversive and original, this is the 2009 Norwegian bestseller from the deliciously dark mind of Erlend Loe.
Reviews
Doppler
‘Wonderfully subversive, funny and original.’ —Observer
‘A darkly comic fable which makes some astringent points about the way we live today.’ —Independent
‘Charming, funny and a touch dark… [Doppler] is like a Nordic Obi-Wan.’ —Big Issue
‘A heart warming tale.’ —Edinburgh Evening News
‘Loe provides his readers with a steady stream of deadpan irony and keenly observed social absurdity… an affecting portrait of materialist alienation.’ —Times Literary Supplement
‘An absurdist, hilariously subversive novel.’ —Saga
‘Easy to read but not quickly forgotten, Doppler is a deceptively humorous tale of a man’s search for meaning in his life… A distinctive and original book.’ —Red
Also by Erlend Loe
Doppler
Once, Doppler lived in a nice house and went to work every morning in his Volvo. Then, shortly after his father died, he left his job, his home and his family, and went to live in the forest.
For a while, Doppler is strangely content. The woods are lovely, dark and deep, and he finds companionship in the form of a tenacious baby elk named Bongo. But over time, others are attracted to their simple way of life. Doppler is joined by his young son (who quickly goes into daytime television withdrawal). Düsseldorf – a depressed miniature-soldier enthusiast – sets up camp nearby and is followed by an obnoxious right-wing dog walker. Even Doppler’s pregnant wife pays the occasional conjugal visit.
And with every convert to his new life in the woods, the existence that Doppler foresaw – alone, in the forest, with his elk – is disappearing…
Compelling and perceptive, Doppler is a deeply subversive fable from one of Norway’s bestselling writers.
For a preview of Doppler, click here.
Doppler is available here.
About the Author
ERLEND LOE is a Norwegian novelist. His eight books have been translated into over twenty languages.
DON BARTLETT lives in Norfolk, and is the translator of, among others, Per Petterson and Jo Nesbø.
DON SHAW lives in Denmark and is the compiler of the standard Danish-Thai dictionaries. They have previously collaborated on novels by Roy Jacobsen and Jakob Ejersbo.
A Letter from the Publisher
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First published in the UK in 2013 by Head of Zeus Ltd.
Copyright © Erlend Loe, 2009
Copyright © Cappelen Damm AS, 2009
Translation © Don Bartlett and Don Shaw, 2013
Published in agreement with Rogers, Coleridge & White Ltd., 20 Powis Mews, London W11 1JN, in association with Cappelen Damm AS, Akersgata 47/49, Oslo, Norway
The moral right of Erlend Loe to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
The moral right of Don Bartlett and Don Shaw to be identified as the translators of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
This translation has been published with the financial support of NORLA.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN (HB): 9781781855171
ISBN (eBook): 9781781855164
Typeset by www.BenStudios.co.uk
Head of Zeus Ltd
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Contents
Cover
Welcome Page
Note
Lazy Days
Preview – Doppler
About this Book
Reviews
Also by Erlend Loe
About the Author
An Invitation from the Publisher
Copyright
Erlend Loe, Lazy Days
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