AshehougAgency

Steffen Takes His Share of the Responsibility

Autumn 2007. The world is about to go under. People are dying every day. The ice is melting everywhere. A slide show is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Meanwhile, in the capital of Norway: Someone starts a half full dishwasher. There are ongoing discussions as to whether the light bulbs should be changed or not.

23 year old Steffen has had it. He is done with CO2. Done with internet, information and polystyrene, with warnings and appeals. The solution is a spontaneous trip to his family’s luxurious cottage in the woods outside of Oslo. To stay at the cottage without heating. Without electricity. Without the cosy atmosphere. Without family, bubble bath, battery powered pepper mills. Without women.

This autumn has been hard for Steffen. He studies law to live up to his parents’ expectations. He works part time doing the dishes at a restaurant, which in his opinion is a bit too generous with the raw materials. His girlfriend Isabell already has a job as a real estate agent, she comes tired home from work and is not happy to be forced to deal with Steffen’s increasingly intense passion for environmental issues. In the cafeteria at the faculty of law, the charming environmental activist Kjersti sits and feeds Steffen with long gazes, frightening You Tube videos and pictures of rain forest tribe members crying in front of their ravaged forest.

Steffen’s environmentally sustainable trip to the cottage goes according to the plan, until his consumer habits, the warmth, the cosiness, and not least, his family, friends and girl friends catch up with him and force him to make a choice. Should he go on being the immaculate consumer his surroundings expect him to be? Or should he get a job which entails stroking Timbaland’s forehead?

Praise for STEFFEN TAKES HIS SHARE OF THE RESPONSIBILITY:

“A refreshingly amusing first novel … The heritage from Erlend Loe does not cause any problems. 23 year old Valeur has a personal voice, a language that works well and laughter-inducing dialogues with great flow […] Valeur offers intelligent fun, good craftsmanship and a promising debut.”
(Dagbladet)

”STEFFEN TAKES HIS SHARE OF THE RESPONSIBILITY is a fun book … a humorous twist to the story of self discovery and finding one’s place in the world.”
(NRK)

”With his overacted naivety and underlying melodrama, the debutant Valeur comes across as a young Erlend Loe … But the book is easily read and entertaining, and full of amusing formal experiments … And it is a joy to witness how Steffen masterly succeeds in maintaining a bad atmosphere when he run away project is invaded by family, girl friend and friends.”
(Universitas)

“A charming novel of a cheeky anti-hero trying to escape from the affluent society, while covering his own life crisis behind radical environmental politics […] the numerous exaggerations and ironic swipes are presented by an entertaining, elegant, at times even challenging narrative voice which comes across as credible. Because under all the clever one-liners and half-absurd situations the reader senses a vulnerable tone of things unsaid, that still can be heard if one listens carefully. […] Both the book’s motives as well as its theme and literary tone remind one of the works of Erlend Loe […] casually, and not without pathos, [Valeur] entices the reader to come closer to serious and heavy conflicts in intimate relations.”
(Aftenbladet)

First published: 2009, Aschehoug
Christian Valeur: Biography and bibliography