Melancholy I–II by Jon Fosse — Winner of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Literature

Description

Melancholy I-IIA�is a fictional invocation of the nineteenth-century Norwegian artist Lars Hertervig, who painted luminous landscapes, suffered mental illness and died poor in 1902. In this wild, feverish narrative, Jon Fosse delves into Hertervig�?Ts mind as the events of one day precipitate his mental breakdown. A student of Hans Gude at the Academy of Art in DA�sseldorf, Hertervig is paralyzed by anxieties about his talent and is overcome with love for Helene Winckelmann, his landlady�?Ts daughter. Marked by inspiring lyrical flights of passion and enraged sexual delusions, Hertervig�?Ts fixation on Helene persuades her family that he must leave. Oppressed by hallucinations and with nowhere to go, Hertervig shuttles between a cafe, where he endures the mockery of his more sophisticated classmates, and the Winckelmann�?Ts apartment, which he desperately tries to re-enter �?” a limbo state which leads him inexorably into a state of madness. Published here in one volume in English for the first time,A�Melancholy I-IIA�is a major novel by �?~the Beckett of the twenty-first century�?T (Le Monde).; 416 pages; 27/10/2023

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