In the first volume of a trilogy of novels, Jon Fosse explores profound questions: what makes us who we are? And why do we lead one life instead of another?
Whether you’re new to The Other Name: Septology I-II or have read it and would like to explore it more deeply, here is our comprehensive guide.
In the village of Dyglia in Norway, Asle, an aging painter and widower, is reminiscing about his life. Two hours’ drive down the coast, in Bjørgvin, lives another Asle, also a painter. He and the narrator are doppelgangers - two versions of the same person, two versions of the same life. Written in hypnotic prose that shifts between the first and third person, The Other Name asks questions about subjectivity and the self. What makes us who we are? And why do we lead one life and not another?
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Asle
Asle is an ageing painter and widower, he lives alone on the west coast of Norway. He is sober after previously being an alcoholic and has since found faith in God, joining the Catholic church. Contending with his grief over the loss of his wife, he spends time reflecting on the past.
Asleik
Åsleik is Asle’s neighbor, a bachelor and traditional Norwegian fisherman-farmer. He helps Asle and, in return, Asle gives him food and money, as well as a painting every year, which Åsleik gives to his sister as a present.
Asle
In Bjørgvin, there lives another Asle who is the doppelganger of the first Asle and who is also a painter, though less successful. An alcoholic and an atheist, he has two ex-wives and three children.
Jon Fosse has been nominated for the International Booker Prize twice, in 2020 and 2022. He was born in 1959 on the west coast of Norway and is the recipient of countless prestigious prizes, both in his native country and abroad.
Since his 1983 fiction debut – Red, Black – Fosse has written prose, poetry, essays, short stories, children’s books, and over forty plays, with more than a thousand productions performed and translations into fifty languages.The Other Name is the first volume in Septology, a trilogy. In 2023, Fosse won the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Author Jon Fosse
©AlamyDamion Searls is a translator from German, Norwegian, French and Dutch - and a writer in English. He has translated four books and a libretto by Jon Fosse - Melancholy (co-translated with Grethe Kvernes), Aliss at the Fire, Morning and Evening (novel and libretto), and Scenes from a Childhood - as well as books by many other writers.
Damion Searls
© Beowulf SheehanWyatt Mason, Harpers
‘The book sounds, in summary, terrible: pretentious, self-serious, unendurable. This makes it all the more remarkable how wonderful it is. The book evades all those pitfalls to become something quite different from what it might seem, something that, like all great novels, somehow exceeds our prior idea of what a novel is. Naturally, the pleasures of plot and character, subject and setting, draw us to novels broadly, but a great novel draws us to a shadow tale at its heart: the story of its style. With Septology, Fosse has found a new approach to writing fiction, different from what he has written before and—it is strange to say, as the novel enters its fifth century—different from what has been written before.’
Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal
‘Like most of Mr. Fosse’s numerous works of fiction, The Other Name is stark, serious, thoroughly interior and written in an unbroken stream of consciousness that does not call to mind the flowing of a river so much as the steady drip of a thawing glacier […] In Damion Searls’s expertly restrained translation, the writing has the artless, improvised feel of an extended prayer, passing through repetitions, drab descriptive formulas and sudden moments of fervency.’
John Self, The Irish Times
‘Fosse’s book, translated by Damion Searls, is of a particular and recognisable type of European literature. The prose is closely packed and repetitive, with no paragraph breaks except when characters speak. The action is internal: everything that happens in the book happens in the narrator’s head. Which is fine, because what is a book but an effort, with no moving parts, to make things happen inside a reader’s head?’
‘Fosse’s recursive narrative has echoes of such literary contemporaries as Ben Lerner and Karl Ove Knausgaard, while his deep focus on minutiae calls to mind Nathalie Sarraute. Fosse’s portrait of intersecting lives is that rare metaphysical novel that readers will find compulsively readable.’
Catherine Taylor, The Guardian
‘Fosse’s fusing of the commonplace and the existential, together with his dramatic forays into the past, make for a relentlessly consuming work: already Septology feels momentous.’
‘Septology is by far the longest text I have ever written. I spent five years writing the novel, which has an architecture built of seven parts or books. In most countries they are published in three volumes. I hope and think they can be read alone, especially I-II, The Other Name, longlisted for the International Booker Prize in 2020, and VI-VII, A New Name. But of course, this novel is also part of the whole that is Septology, and that in a way sums up a lot of what I have written earlier – motives from both earlier novels and plays are somehow re-written there – but seen in a different light.’
Read the full interview here.
‘For the first time in my writing there are essayistic components, and I also refer to real people, though not that many. Samuel Beckett, Georg Trakl, Lars Hertervig—all figures who have been very important to me—make an appearance, and I refer to certain paintings like Bridal Procession on the Hardangerfjord by Adolph Tidemand and Hans Gude. Meister Eckhart, the thinker who has perhaps been most important to me, is also included.’
Read the full interview here.
Author Jon Fosse
©Getty ImagesJon Fosse is well known for his unique writing style, namely his lack of punctuation (not a single full stop), with the exception of commas and question marks. How did you find the author’s writing style impacted your reading experience?
Fosse plays with the idea of duality in The Other Name. Some readers have posed the question of whether the two Asles are, in fact, the same person, or whether there are parallel lives/universes at play. What is your view on that theory? And what do you think Fosse is trying to convey through this duality?
Asle is a painter, and his art plays a significant role in the novel. How does his relationship with painting reflect his inner life? What does art symbolise for him, and how does it connect to the themes of identity and existence?
There are instances within The Other Name where Fosse has taken inspiration and experiences from his own life. In an interview with The Los Angeles Review of Books, he states ‘I’m on the opposite side of “autofiction” – I’m simply writing fiction,’ adding that ‘I’m using my own life and what I’ve read as material, not as something I want to write in a realistic way’. Does knowing that the book contains fictionalised accounts of the author’s own experiences alter your views of the book?
Fosse has described his writing style as ‘slow prose,’ a style that, according to an interview in Music & Literature, is ‘fiction that takes its time, is a bit meandering and hypnotic, and doesn’t rush from one thing to the next’. He states that he wanted the language to flow in a ‘peaceful’ way. How did you find this style contributes to the atmosphere of the book and can you think of other writers who have employed similar techniques?
The Other Name unfolds over a couple of days, and Fosse documents a lot of ordinary and often mundane, day-to-day experiences in the narrative, such as what Asle eats and every conversation he has. Did these ordinary moments enhance your connection to the character and his world?
The Other Name contains a limited plot, instead focusing on character meditations across a wide variety of themes, such as existentialism, grief and loss. In a review of the novel, World Literature Today suggest that ‘style is more important than story.’ Would you agree with this view?
There are religious and spiritual undertones in The Other Name. How does Fosse use these elements to explore the characters’ inner struggles? How do the concepts of faith and doubt manifest in the story?
Fosse lives in Norway and sets much of his work there. How does the The Other Name’s ontribute to the atmosphere and overall tone of the story? In what ways does the landscape reflect the inner lives of the characters?
Some readers and reviewers have said that it’s difficult to discern whether some scenes are real or imagined within the book; whether they are happening in the current moment or have happened sometime in the past. Did you find this to be true in your reading experience?
Fosse has been compared to authors including Harold Pinter, Samuel Beckett (Le Monde called him ‘the Beckett of the 21st century’) and Fyodor Dostoevsky. Do you see similarities between Fosse’s work and that of the great writers of the past century or so, and in what ways does Fosse’s work stand apart?
Los Angeles Review of Books: A Second, Silent Language: A Conversation with Jon Fosse
The Guardian: Nobel prize winner Jon Fosse: ‘It took years before I dared to write again’
Granta: Interview Jon Fosse
The Guardian: Where to start with: Jon Fosse
Tank TV: In conversation with Jon Fosse
A New Name: Septology VI-VII by Jon Fosse, translated by Damion Searls
A Shining by Jon Fosse, translated by Damion Searls
A Death in the Family: My Struggle Book 1 by Karl Ove Knausgaard, translated by Don Bartlett
The Trial by Franz Kafka
Collected Shorter Plays by Samuel Beckett
The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Jennifer Croft
A New Name: Septology VI-VII by Jon Fosse, translated by Damion Searls
