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FURTHER FICTION: Siamese
Deadly funny
Cappelen: Siamesisk
Reviewed by Arne Mo in Dag og Tid (6/1998)
Old Edwin is sitting in his bathroom waiting for death. He is blind, rheumatic, and suffers from psoriasis. He has little reason to look on the bright side of things, something we cannot accuse him of doing either. Edwin has, in a double sense, a dark outlook on life, darker than the majority of us. So dark in fact, that it all becomes outrageously comical. All that he thinks and does is pitch- black and gloomy, in line with the situation he finds himself in. He is in the process of decaying both inside and out, and has long since lost control of his bodily functions. In this, his predicament, it is his mouth that becomes his most important tool. The sounds he can make with it confirm that he is alive, albeit against his own will. Moreover he has an irresistible urge to share his frustrations with his surroundings i.e. his wife, who he feels no longer respects him. How come she is so unashamedly healthy and fit, whilst he sits there like a rotting corpse? "Bloody bitch", is often his opening remark as he calls her in for her daily flood of abuse over an insignificant trifle. One trifle the meticulous Edwin does not fail to make use of however, is this: don't be so cock sure he is totally blind. Erna herself is practically deaf. She plays along with the old cross-patch out of lifelong habit, caring for him as best she can. What else can she do? On occasion she wishes him dead and gone, a thought that the very next minute frightens her. What will become of her if Edwin isn't around? And so on and so forth, throughout the entire book. Lashing out at one another to confirm one another. A kind of negative dependency that is too late to remedy, and which I suspect they are unwilling to, should it come to the crunch. They have become so entwined and inseparable, as only an aging couple can be. And as such the book is deeply moving, because their love story commences where literary love stories usually end.
Sandemose
There are many aspects of this book that remind one of the author Sandemose - wringing the subject matter to the very last drop, shining a light into the darkest and most forgotten corners of the human spirit, holding it up as a mirror to the reader with the use of words.
One feels slightly inadequate in the mention of such a work, but I will plod on as best I can. To return to Sandemose. Anyone who has read his novel The Werewolf, will recall the prototype Norwegian couple "Stein-Gustav" and his obedient wife. Edwin and Erna are, in many ways their counterparts - only more extreme, if that is possible. Conscientious, pedantic and petite bourgeois, they live empty and tragic lives. But it is one thing living such a life, quite another sitting bound to your chair in the bathroom, looking back at it. Seventy years right down the drain. It is small wonder that Edwin is bitter and resentful. Not only has illness struck him a blow, we also learn that he was sacked from the nursing-home where he was a hated and tyrannical warden for the best part of his life. Worst of all, he cannot forget the patient who still owes him five hundred krones. To hell with them all, he thinks, letting his temper fly at his wife as always. But Erna knows the art of revenge, when she feels that he has gone too far. One of her innocent little tricks is not to flush the toilet when she has relieved herself of long spared up excretions, delivering them with an ice-cold, calculated, and cunning splash. Then he can sit there, in the stench, and sulk. The book is packed with this and other such crazy confrontations, making it easy and entertaining reading, despite its sombre subject matter and the stifling fear of death and loneliness that springs forth from its pages.
A remarkable portrayal
Outwardly little else happens in this book. A brief visit by the caretaker to change a light bulb creates havoc and jealousy in Edwin's constantly simmering mind, otherwise there are a minimum of subsidiary characters. The book is the old couple's secluded universe, just like their flat - all else is superfluous. Edwin sits in the bathroom fretting and getting irritated, Erna potters around in the kitchen. Everything that lurks behind and under this humdrum life, however, creates a tension that makes irresistible reading. Edwin and Erna are allotted each their alternate chapters - two written streams of consciousness/experiences of a shared destiny and existence. But it is Edwin who has the leading role. Erna gives us the outsider's perspective, whilst he invites us within. Yet the communication between the two of them has reached such a deadlock, that it is ultimately only the reader who has the true insight into their situation. This is due to the old couple's gradual withdrawal from each other, and an ice-cold animosity that they have cultivated into an art form and way of life. They chat and argue about nothing but silly trivialities - what each of them is actually thinking, they can only hazard a guess, since none of them is willing to concede to their innermost thoughts and feelings. It is in the juxtaposition of these infantile conflicts and the deeply tragic that a humour emanates from between the lines, giving the reader a rare and engaging literary experience. Anyone who has ever quarrelled themselves into the wilderness with their partner will know what I mean. In addition, to end it all, we are presented an unexpected finale - one that the undersigned, at least, will not forget in a hurry.
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