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Amsterdam De Bezige Bij 2020
ISBN
9789403196602
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Fictio Literatur Historical Fictio HTML: Shortlisted for the 2017 International Man Booker Prize Shortlisted for the 2018 International Dublin Literary Award�?? "Even by his high standards, his magnificent new novel The Unseen is Jacobsen's finest to date, as blunt as it is subtle and is easily among the best books I have ever read."�??Eileen Battersby, Irish Times Born on the Norwegian island that bears her name, Ingrid Barrøy's world is circumscribed by storm-scoured rocks and the moods of the sea by which her family lives and dies. But her father dreams of building a quay that will end their isolation, and her mother longs for the island of her youth, and the country faces its own sea change: the advent of a modern world, and all its unpredictability and violence. Brilliantly translated into English by Don Bartlett and Don Shaw, The Unseen is the first book in the Barrøy Trilogy and a moving exploration of family, resilience, an… (more)
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LibraryThing member msf59
“...once you settle on an island, you never leave, an island holds on to what it has with all its might and main.”
The Barroy family live on their own island off the Norwegian coast. This wonderful, almost hypnotic novel captures their day to day lives, with the many struggles they encounter,
The Barroy family live on their own island off the Norwegian coast. This wonderful, almost hypnotic novel captures their day to day lives, with the many struggles they encounter,
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along with glimmers of love and joy. The fine details and descriptions may overwhelm some readers but I was swept along with it. I also want to commend the incredible translation by Don Shaw. This is the first of a trilogy. If I can find the others, I will be continuing. Show Less
LibraryThing member JosephCamilleri
What is the meaning of this novel's enigmatic title? For me, "The Unseen" are the book's protagonists, the Barrøys, who own and live on one of the tiny, remote islands off the coast of Norway - aptly named Barrøy. When the novel starts, the Barrøys are old widower Martin, his son Hans (who has
From hints throughout the book, we get the feel that the novel is set roughly a hundred years ago, but the story it relates has a feeling of timelessness, an eternity marked by the recurring seasons. The sun rises and sets. The years roll by. Storms rage, wreak havoc and recede. Children are born. So are lambs. Old men die. So do cows. There are brushes with death - the sea sustains life but it can also take it away. The surrounding world tries to stake its claim over the island, as when there is an insistence that Barrøy be put on the milk route, or when the price of Barrøy's produce is determined by the Mainland's fickle rules of supply and demand. But Barrøy lives on in splendid isolation as a new generation of Barrøys proudly continues the family traditions.
The novel's language, as rendered in the joint translation by Don Bartlett and Don Shaw, is poetic yet lean and blunt. There are plenty of pages of nature writing, but nowhere does it become florid or overly sentimental. Use of dialogue is spare, which is a good thing as the thick dialect of the islanders is conveyed in a dense form of English (I wonder if it is an invented form of speech or based on an actual dialect).
I was pleasantly surprised to learn that The Unseen became a bestseller in Jacobsen's native Norway. It's a striking novel, but no page-turner. Its beauty is as austere as light refracted through a glacier. And just as memorable.
An ebook version of the novel was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review
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recently assumed the mantle of "head of the family"), Hans's wife Maria, their toddler daughter Ingrid and Hans's sister Barbro, who is "not quite there". "The Unseen" follows the fate of the Barrøys over roughly three decades. This might make it sound like a "family saga" or even an updated "Nordic saga", except that, instead of epic battles against gods and monsters, we witness the Barrøys' daily challenges as they toil to eke out a living from the island's soil and the surrounding sea.From hints throughout the book, we get the feel that the novel is set roughly a hundred years ago, but the story it relates has a feeling of timelessness, an eternity marked by the recurring seasons. The sun rises and sets. The years roll by. Storms rage, wreak havoc and recede. Children are born. So are lambs. Old men die. So do cows. There are brushes with death - the sea sustains life but it can also take it away. The surrounding world tries to stake its claim over the island, as when there is an insistence that Barrøy be put on the milk route, or when the price of Barrøy's produce is determined by the Mainland's fickle rules of supply and demand. But Barrøy lives on in splendid isolation as a new generation of Barrøys proudly continues the family traditions.
The novel's language, as rendered in the joint translation by Don Bartlett and Don Shaw, is poetic yet lean and blunt. There are plenty of pages of nature writing, but nowhere does it become florid or overly sentimental. Use of dialogue is spare, which is a good thing as the thick dialect of the islanders is conveyed in a dense form of English (I wonder if it is an invented form of speech or based on an actual dialect).
I was pleasantly surprised to learn that The Unseen became a bestseller in Jacobsen's native Norway. It's a striking novel, but no page-turner. Its beauty is as austere as light refracted through a glacier. And just as memorable.
An ebook version of the novel was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review
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LibraryThing member PZR
This the fourth novel by Roy Jacobsen that I've read to date, and on balance, I'd have to say that it's the best (I still haven't quite finished reading 'Borders', which I found tedious, in the end). The story is told in elegantly spare prose, at least, in the translation of the Dons Bartlett and
And I've just found out, this is the first book in the 'Ingrid Barrøy Trilogy'. How exciting! The other two have already been written, so presumably English readers will have a year or two to wait while books two and three are translated.
I felt the book lost focus somewhat towards the end with too many improbable occurrences, but the remainder of the book was so strong, for me, it didn't spoil the enjoyment of it. Ingrid's story adds another title to the list of coming-of-age classics.
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Shaw (it'd take me the twenty or so years of the book's time span to read the original with my limited Norwegian). The setting and subject matter themselves are elemental - the struggles of a family on a remote island farm, some time ago - and lend the novel a pleasing, fable-like feel. The characters are all well-drawn and the sparse dialogue is rendered in a hybrid of English and Norwegian to reflect the islanders' dialect. There's a relentless trajectory to their yearly battles with the elements. And all the stuff of life is here - the terrors, the dreams, the conflicts and disappointments, but the moments of contentment also. The descriptions of the landscape are fabulous, all the more so, perhaps, if you know this part of the world at all. And I've just found out, this is the first book in the 'Ingrid Barrøy Trilogy'. How exciting! The other two have already been written, so presumably English readers will have a year or two to wait while books two and three are translated.
I felt the book lost focus somewhat towards the end with too many improbable occurrences, but the remainder of the book was so strong, for me, it didn't spoil the enjoyment of it. Ingrid's story adds another title to the list of coming-of-age classics.
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LibraryThing member kcshankd
My great-grandmother's folks emigrated from Norway, I have no idea from where. I now like to think they left a small green island and headed to the States. This was a tremendous novel, I read it as fast as I could. The two or three page asides at a task - knitting, or mending nets, or combing wool
This novel will stick with me for some time.
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- were masterful. This novel will stick with me for some time.
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LibraryThing member ShannonRose4
This novel is a secret invitation to an unknown place and almost forgotten time. The family that inhabit the island Barrøy have a life tied to nature and the weather, having few wants.
The family fears nothing, until the modern ways reach out from the mainland and their dreams of a different life
A novel beautifully told in vivid vignettes that makes for a wonderful mise-en-scène of a novel.
The family fears nothing, until the modern ways reach out from the mainland and their dreams of a different life
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are fulfilled with a sense of unpredictability. A novel beautifully told in vivid vignettes that makes for a wonderful mise-en-scène of a novel.
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LibraryThing member ShannonRose4
This novel is a secret invitation to an unknown place and almost forgotten time. The family that inhabit the island Barrøy have a life tied to nature and the weather, having few wants.
The family fears nothing, until the modern ways reach out from the mainland and their dreams of a different life
A novel beautifully told in vivid vignettes that makes for a wonderful mise-en-scène of a novel.
The family fears nothing, until the modern ways reach out from the mainland and their dreams of a different life
Show More
are fulfilled with a sense of unpredictability. A novel beautifully told in vivid vignettes that makes for a wonderful mise-en-scène of a novel.
Show Less
LibraryThing member froxgirl
This is the best novel set on an island that I've read since the outstanding Elizabeth Ogilvie Bennett's Island sagas set in Maine. Only one small, close-knit family remains on Barroy, a Norwegian coastal islet, and as they have for hundreds of years, now only five inhabitants remain, all laboring
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intensely to feed and clothe themselves and their livestock: grandfather Martin, his daughter Barbro, son Hans, Hans’ wife Maria, and their daughter Ingrid. As seen through Ingrid's fearless eyes, from childhood through adolescence, Barroy is a paradise of rock, sheep, and boats, with minimal and difficult connections to the surrounding larger and more populated islands. Their perseverance and the battering down by the weather – storms, droughts, and heat waves alike - is fascinating, as is the dialogue that the clever translators have turned into Norse patois. As the family’s numbers diminish and grow, the reader becomes annealed to their lives and it is indeed a relief to discover that this fine book is part 1 of a trilogy. There is admiration and almost disbelief at the challenge of maintaining their mastery of such a wild and unforgiving locale. Show Less
LibraryThing member adrianburke
A slow burner this one. Could have given up on it early on but didn't and now want to read the other two books in the trilogy.
LibraryThing member japaul22
The Unseen takes place on a tiny island off the coast of Norway in the early 20th century, where the Barroy family lives and works. It is just the 5 of them: grandfather Martin, father Hans, mother Maria, their daughter Ingrid, and Barbro, Hans' sister. They have occasional contact with the small
This book is very Scandinavian in tone. If you've read much Scandinavian lit, you'll know what I mean - spare sentences, hard work, little fun, weather that dictates life, interior, little dialogue. I love it. The characters end up being rich, though as a reader you discover them differently than you're used to in American and British books. I love the setting and learning the small details of life in this sort of location. And there is plenty of drama - it's just not presented dramatically.
This is the start of a trilogy that follows Ingrid, and I will definitely continue it.
Original publication date: 2017
Author’s nationality: Norwegian
Original language: Norwegian
Length: 272 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: purchased for kindle
Why I read this: review caught my eye
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town on the mainland and Hans goes off to fish every winter. But Hans builds a quay on their island, which opens them up a bit more to interaction. And as Ingrid grows older, a wider life begins to intrude on the island and their world expands. This book is very Scandinavian in tone. If you've read much Scandinavian lit, you'll know what I mean - spare sentences, hard work, little fun, weather that dictates life, interior, little dialogue. I love it. The characters end up being rich, though as a reader you discover them differently than you're used to in American and British books. I love the setting and learning the small details of life in this sort of location. And there is plenty of drama - it's just not presented dramatically.
This is the start of a trilogy that follows Ingrid, and I will definitely continue it.
Original publication date: 2017
Author’s nationality: Norwegian
Original language: Norwegian
Length: 272 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: purchased for kindle
Why I read this: review caught my eye
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LibraryThing member arubabookwoman
This is the first book in the Barroy Trilogy, and it was shortlisted for the 2017 International Booker. It is the story of the Barroy family eking out a living on bleak rocky island of the northern Norwegian coast, an island that bears their name, and on which they are the only inhabitants. The
The island's other inhabitants are Ingrid's mother and father, Maria and Hans, her grandfather Martin, and her aunt Barbro, who is mentally "not all there," but whose capacity for physical labor makes her an important member of the group. Every winter, Hans goes away for months to fish, and in the summer he often goes to the mainland as a laborer to earn cash for the improvements he hopes to make on the island. This means that much of the island work must be done by the two women, the elderly man and the child. So their days are filled with plowing, sheep-tending, cutting peat, and yes, fishing and salting and drying fish. As Ingrid grows up, it seems like very little is happening, yet each day is filled, and we learn all that is involved in eking out an existence in a hostile environment. The weather in particular can suddenly turn and destroy a day's or a week's work. Jacobsen brings this all to life, and I came to love this taciturn, stoic family. This was a great reading experience (I've already checked volume 2 out of the library). I've been wavering between 4 1/2 and 5 stars, but I'm going to go ahead and give it:
5 stars
FIRST LINE: "On a windless day in July, the smoke rises vertically to the sky."
LAST LINE: "Then it is as though they have had their working day halved or been given a whole new day within the old one, and can set to work on the scythe again.
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focus is on Ingrid, who is mere toddler when the book opens and a young woman coming into her own when the book concludes. You could call it a coming-of-age story, yet it is so much more.The island's other inhabitants are Ingrid's mother and father, Maria and Hans, her grandfather Martin, and her aunt Barbro, who is mentally "not all there," but whose capacity for physical labor makes her an important member of the group. Every winter, Hans goes away for months to fish, and in the summer he often goes to the mainland as a laborer to earn cash for the improvements he hopes to make on the island. This means that much of the island work must be done by the two women, the elderly man and the child. So their days are filled with plowing, sheep-tending, cutting peat, and yes, fishing and salting and drying fish. As Ingrid grows up, it seems like very little is happening, yet each day is filled, and we learn all that is involved in eking out an existence in a hostile environment. The weather in particular can suddenly turn and destroy a day's or a week's work. Jacobsen brings this all to life, and I came to love this taciturn, stoic family. This was a great reading experience (I've already checked volume 2 out of the library). I've been wavering between 4 1/2 and 5 stars, but I'm going to go ahead and give it:
5 stars
FIRST LINE: "On a windless day in July, the smoke rises vertically to the sky."
LAST LINE: "Then it is as though they have had their working day halved or been given a whole new day within the old one, and can set to work on the scythe again.
Show Less
LibraryThing member banjo123
Lovely, spare prose. Historical fiction about pre-WWII live on an Island off the coast of Norway. Good exploration of family dynamics.
LibraryThing member kayanelson
My favorite book of 2023 so far.
The Unseen tells the story of the family that lives alone on Barroy Island. The book details everyday life for the family who lives a difficult, hardworking existence. It spans quite a few years and not much really happens except that a lot does happen. I can really
In my opinion, there is a lot that is Unseen in this book. I almost wanted to start reading it again as soon as I finished as I feel like I missed a lot. A work of genius. Brilliant.
The Unseen tells the story of the family that lives alone on Barroy Island. The book details everyday life for the family who lives a difficult, hardworking existence. It spans quite a few years and not much really happens except that a lot does happen. I can really
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enjoy books like this that hold my interest despite being day to day life, (The Miss Read Fairacre and Thrush Green series are like that except such a different life than this. )In my opinion, there is a lot that is Unseen in this book. I almost wanted to start reading it again as soon as I finished as I feel like I missed a lot. A work of genius. Brilliant.
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Awards
Dublin Literary Award (Shortlist — 2018)
Europese Literatuurprijs (Longlist — 2021)
The International Booker Prize (Shortlist — 2017)
Original publication date
2013