Professor Andersen's Night

It is Christmas Eve, and 55-year-old Professor Pål Andersen is alone, drinking coffee and cognac in his living room. Lost in thought, he looks out of the window and sees a man strangle a woman in the apartment across the street.

Professor Andersen fails to report the crime. The days pass, and he becomes paralysed by indecision. Desperate for respite, the professor sets off to the sushi bar of a local Japanese restaurant, only to find himself face to face with the murderer. 

Professor Andersen’s Night is an unsettling yet highly entertaining novel of apathy, rebellion and morality. In flinty prose, Solstad presents an uncomfortable question: would we, like his cerebral protagonist, do nothing?

Praise for Professor Andersens natt:

“For more than 40 years, Solstad has been considered among the elite of Norwegian authors… In intricate, partly coquettish sentences, Solstad constantly changes what is already uttered. It is in this way he creates the balanced and slightly ironic distance to articulated thoughts and contemplations that marks his prose and brings out joy in his readers”
(Neue Züricher Zeitung, Switzerland)

“Glacier-cold prose with an unsurpassed distance that creates a rare, uplifting pleasure”
(Berliner Literaturkritik, Germany)

”An elegant satire about the bourgeois intellectuals’ satiated lives, where the most spectacular rebellion consists of putting on jeans when going to the theatre”
(Kulturspiegel, Germany)

“Literature and society meets again in Solstad’s parable in a way one would wish to see more often. Without ideology, but in an utterly artistic manner”
(Der Bund, Germany)

”Solstad is an unusually accomplished cynic, who relentlessly uncovers the bourgeois moral considerations the professor makes in order to obscure the fact that he takes no action. Between a dinner party with friends and reflections about Ibsen, Solstad builds up a suspense which culminates in the professor meeting the murderer. A masterly anti-thriller!”
(Westfälischer Anzeiger, Germany)

”Tradional Cristmas rituals are often treated in literary texts… When an author such as Dag Solstad takes hold of this theme, the reader must be prepared for most eventualities. Solstad’s novels, plays and essays have for many years been something of the best Norwegian literature has to offer. Dag Solstad really knows how to set up surprising perspectives”
(Deutschland Radio, Germany)

”The Norwegian Dag Solstad elucidates the innermost corners of the human soul and is like a philosopher tracking down the existential”
(52 beste Bücher, Schweizer Radio DRS2, Germany)

”An intelligent, sad and ironic book, not just for creative types who are as old and wise as Professor Andersen”
(Basler Zeitung, Germany)

”It is a rare joy when a writer’s talent and wisdom fuse to make his books more than just a pleasant diversion”
(Wiener Zeitung, Germany)

”The plethora of long sentences in the book are anything but overwhelming or exhausting for the reader. Rather, they are like a flowing river on which the reader may at times float placidly, before suddenly being flung into lashing whirlpools, then to be washed up on a desolate bank in a state somewhere between reflection and despair”
(Züricher Oberländer, Germany)

”Using a succinct plot, Dag Solstad creates an almost panoramic portrait of society which reveals the immaterial deficiencies of our postmodern times and which, despite the ironic stance, leaves an uncomfortable feeling behind. The sentences, which are full to bursting with opinions, observations, feelings and information are an interesting contrast to the economical and slow-flowing action”
(Die Berliner Literaturkritik, Germany)

”Ornate sentences which span whole pages testify to Dag Solstad’s great artistry and elegant irony”
(Buch der Woche, NDR, Germany)

"This is a shaking book. And one of Solstad's best. A more commendatory characterisation, I can't think of"
(Bergens Tidende)

"...several layers of both existential seriousness and play with words. There isn't a single boring page"
(NRK)

"... a pleasure to read his characteristic style"
(Adresseavisen)

"Dag Solstad has, as usual, written a good book, an important novel, a piece of exciting literature"
(Klassekampen)

"Unrelenting Solstad"
(Linn Ullmann, Dagbladet)

First published: 1996, Forlaget Oktober

Dag Solstad:   Biography and bibliography

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