AshehougAgency

Tunnel

A man shows up one evening at the home of a former friend, a girl, asking to stay there for a few days. It’s unclear what kind if relationship there has been between the two. He seeks out places and situations he might have been in or experienced earlier, but he can no longer recognize any of them – nor is he recognized by other people. He tries to get money from a cash machine, but the card is swallowed. He goes to the University campus, only to discover that his name is no longer registered.

But then he meets a young girl who tries to help him. The chronology, the sequence of events, seems to get stuck, as if the story itself develops a fever and starts getting confused and delirious. TUNNEL is a dark fable of belonging, about distancing yourself from everything, including yourself.

Praise for TUNNEL:

“A concise, angst-ridden, metaphorically rich wandering through the transitory world”
(Cathrine Kröger, Dagbladet, Norway)

“Markus Midré has the gift of making sharp observations […] The prose is almost recording, listing, unsentimentally as if he was writing a report. And stil Midré’s novel is filled with a presence and an atmosphere bordering on the raw, infinitely vulnerable. It’s Midré’s careful choice of words that produces this feeling of entering a shadow landscape, where existence itself appears mysterious. […] TUNNEL confirms and reinforces Markus Midré’s position as one of our most sophisticated prose writers.”
(Turid Larsen, Dagsavisen, Norway)

”The book makes you want to spend the winter in a library … Most of all, TUNNEL is an impressive piece of linguistic work, the poetic imprint can be traced in every sentence and creates an aesthetic experience that is not far from bliss … Midré masters the art of balancing steadily between the progression of the story and sharp poetic formulations. He quickly brings the reader into his literary universe, and she wants to stay there – despite the darkness of the fiction”

(Silje Stavrum Norevik, Bergens Tidende, Norway)

”Midré has found a good rhythm, and when it says on the cover that “the story comes down with a fever”, I have to agree that it’s a good description of what happens. Maybe you didn’t think a story could come down with a fever, but it can”

(Silje Bekeng, Klassekampen, Norway)

”ingenious and interesting, a book to return to”

(Bjørn Gabrielsen, Dagens Næringsliv, Norway)

”It is strange and wonderful how he manages, with such simple descriptions, to make the text vibrate with vitality. Many of the passages should simply be enjoyed!”

(Inger Marie Kjølstadmyr, Nationen, Norway)

”Markus Midré rarely writes lengthy books. And his writing is always beautiful … throughout the book he has preserved a dense and intense language that never gets insistent … A disquiet grumbles in the text, it describes in a way that pulls me into the dark, into the tunnel.”

(Karen Frøysland Nystøyl, Vårt Land, Norway)

First published: 2009, Oktober
Markus Midré: Biography and bibliography