AshehougAgency

No Mar

The action in this novel takes place at a time when privatization is about to transform much of the public sector. As a result, different levels of communication in society crumble, individuals have fewer chances to participate, and slide more and more into the role of mere spectators. The government, which had once decided the operational premises for the economy, now emerges as an administrative unit for a global power structure. This system removes responsibility from the nation and smaller structures within it, such as the county, municipality and finally citizens, who in this context no longer feel any responsibility to promote a common agenda.

Against this backdrop, the artist Olav Lande arranges a fake death, including his own funeral. His son, Ola Lande, offered certain inheritance rights, gets involved and approves this false act. But this is just the beginning. The novel tells of the day Olav Lande returns from his fictive death, which coincides with his son’s train journey to Oslo to launch his father’s final writings. A string of meetings complicates the story, and what should have been a journey towards a safer future seems instead to be one tumbling towards ruin and death.

Praise for No Mar:

”A paradoxical and ambiguous text, which shows that expressing opposition in a literary form is still possible”
(Bergens Tidende)

”No Mar, his latest novel, is composed in a dry, impersonal style. The crystal clear prose imitates the way society has been totally regulated; no words or sentences going crazy here: the language is kept regimented … a lot more fun than most of the things being written in Norway”
(Klassekampen)

First published: 2006, Forlaget Oktober
Tormod Haugland: Biography and bibliography