What Replies
Blom, Kirsti: Det som svarer”A hand to stroke his cheek would have been a blessing now. It was still in him, that instant response, on his skin, in certain places, alongside his liver spots, causing his whole body to shudder when a hand stroked his cheek. He could recall this hand, hers, the tenderness which stroked his cheek. Without being asked sometimes she would allow allow the palm of her hand to glide over his cheek. A shuddering then started in his stomach and spread throughout his body.”
An old man sets out on his last great journey, from his home far south on the globe to a flatland in the north. The former professional wrestler Hasti has always carried a haunting unease which has given him an unsteady and changing life, and now he can feel disease ravage his old body. With him on his journey he has brought his most beloved book, a masterpiece on the Italian renaissance master Fra Angelico, who painted “as if he had profound knowledge of creatures from the hereafter, both from heaven and hell, and that his endeavour was to bring out the space between these extremes and the existence of the human beings in the middle”. Hasti meets many people on his journey, but most of all he meets himself through memories, strange visions and intense déja-vus. With great courage he also faces the question: How can one forgive oneself and find peace? With grace and perception, Kirsti Blom portrays an old man with will to live, strength and a searching soul.
Praise for What Replies:
”Lively yet exposed. Kirsti Blom is an unusually unpredictable author. But combining the animate with the vulnerable is a trait in her writing … Part of Kirsti Blom’s strength as a writer lies in her ability to take unusual settings and make them intimate and sensual … Grabbing hold of life, liberating oneself from what seems predestined to find one’s own path – this seems to be part of this novel’s thematic core. But there is also joy in the depiction of the old man who chooses to take his life into his own hands. Celebrating life is an essential part of this novel … In Det som svarer the desire to grab hold of life is the crux of the novel”
(Hamar Arbeiderblad)
”A strange yet powerful, hypnotic and beautiful paean to life. Such effects are combined in this perfect and very carefully composed work by Kirsti Blom … Experiencing nature occupies a prominent place in the novel and is depicted skillfully using varied, beautiful language, with her daring to use unusual and antiquated phrases and expressions which create poetry, beauty and life … The reader is drawn into the hypnotic, seductive style, which only tells us the most necessary … This book may well depict the passage of a normal, good person towards death, but it is also a fabulous paean to life”
(Aftenposten)
”Kirsti Blom writes in such a heartfelt way about this elderly man’s lonely journey to find peace in his soul after his wife’s death that the longing he feels sits like a stone in the stomach – in the reader’s stomach, too … a well wrought novel which leaves a lasting impression on readers”
(Adresseavisen)
”Kirsti Blom offers readers one of this year’s most powerful books - a beautifully sad novel about a fat, elderly man on his final journey … It is as if the author had painted the whole work using the finest of brushstrokes. The text is delicate and poetic, yet leaves room for the impure and taboo … Kirsti Blom is so conscious of language and detail that her book might well have ended up being a mere exercise in style. But she weaves this so well into her material that the text is imbued with a pure and sensitive intimacy. Reading a novel which does not have a single, weak sentence is in itself an experience. But when the novel also expresses how something good always emerges, even for people about to die a lonely death, then it’s beautifully poignant. This is exquisite”
(Nationen)
First published: 2006, Forlaget Oktober
Kirsti Blom: Biography and biblography
