Dag Solstad

A tale inspired by Ibsen's The Wild Duck finds teacher Elias Rukla so engrossed with his passion for Ibsen that he barely notices the hostility of his high-school students, an animosity that shifts on a pivotal day during which a broken umbrella provokes an unpredictable rage. Original.

Shyness and Dignity

I have always enjoyed books about nobodies failing to realise their life’s potential. There is something very moving about a person who, nearing middle-age, reflects on their lot in life, realising that at a few pivotal moments they could have had the willpower or agency to change something, but did nothing, and now they live with the consequences of dissatisfaction. Books in the vein of Stoner, or The Remains of the Day—two of my favourite novels of all time. Perhaps I like them because I relate to the feeling—perhaps everyone can relate to the feeling—for who amongst us isn’t an ‘average person’ living an average life? It is, by definition, the fate for the majority of us. A dissatisfied life causes one to linger in the pain of nostalgia, and the best authors can really lean into the bittersweet hurt of a remembered past.

Shyness and Dignity is the first novel I have read of Dag Solstad—I’m not sure if it is a novel most emblematic of his style, as I have heard he gets weird and unique in some of his works, but I didn’t detect much of that in this novel (or I’ve just developed a very high baseline for weird). The novel is about the life of Elias Rukla, a middle-aged Norwegian literature teacher in Oslo. In a kind of banal rut in life, Elias Rukla teaches Norwegian literature to bored high schoolers, focussing primarily on the works of Ibsen and other Norwegian classics, without much passion for teaching or any interest in his students, or interest in his perception by the students. He has taught in the same 

for 25 years. He has very few friends in the school faculty and, despite everyone’s advanced education, cannot seem to find interesting conversations anywhere. He is in a failing, loveless marriage of dubious circumstances, his daughter has moved out of his house, and it all leads to him reaching his breaking point, finally snapping, and having his worst ever day in his entire teaching career.

Reflecting on how he got to this point on his way into town, he thinks about how he met his wife, who was actually the wife of his best friend who he met studying literature and philosophy in university. Chronology shifts into a meaningful recollection of his university years—perhaps the only time in Elias Rukla’s life where he felt happy and content. It is a slow, painful unwinding from his happy university life to the sad, fretful, timid and emasculated life he now leads. To say anymore would spoil the beats, but it is hard to talk of this 160-page novel without describing everything, so I will force myself to stop.

Solstad writes in a very controlled, histrionic and pathetic stream-of-consciousness in third-person, with the protagonist continuously overthinking, self-critiquing, looping back into thoughts, and catastrophising—in other words, ‘shyness’ is the dominating factor in the protagonist’s life, and Solstad’s presentation of this pathetic man is so painfully relatable, and oftentimes quite funny. The style reminds me a lot of Woolf, with the constantly chronology-shifting third-person stream-of-consciousness, and the novella features no chapters and only the occasional scene-break, so it was very easy for me to get drawn in by the prose, reading in long, hypnotic spurts. A much sadder version of Mrs Dalloway, perhaps. Sad, Norwegian Mrs Dalloway meets William Stoner, perhaps.

Though the novel is fantastically written, I unfortunately can’t say it left much of an impression on me, with the emotional thrust of the novel being too abstracted and lost in this stream-of-consciousness. A lot of it is told subtextually, as Elias Rukla, in true Norwegian fashion, bottles up his emotions in a sense of false lucidity and masculine logic. Although we are given a window into Elias Rukla’s thoughts, I never felt we accessed his soul. The novel also felt like it lingered a bit too much on certain scenes (I don’t think we need to think 

Nonetheless, I am definitely interested in reading more of Solstag’s works, especially as this novel was only chosen at random from what was available second-hand. An incredibly gifted writer with a very clear love for the Norwegian influences he wears on his sleeve. I am sure Norway and International literature lost a giant in his passing this year. 

shain

I have always enjoyed books about nobodies failing to realise their life’s potential. There is something very moving about a person who, nearing middle-age, reflects on their lot in life, realising that at a few pivotal moments they could have had the willpower or agency to change something, but did nothing, and now they live with the consequences of dissatisfaction. Books in the vein of Stoner, or The Remains of the Day—two of my favourite novels of all time. Perhaps I like them because I relate to the feeling—perhaps everyone can relate to the feeling—for who amongst us isn’t an ‘average person’ living an average life? It is, by definition, the fate for the majority of us. A dissatisfied life causes one to linger in the pain of nostalgia, and the best authors can really lean into the bittersweet hurt of a remembered past.

Shyness and Dignity is the first novel I have read of Dag Solstad—I’m not sure if it is a novel most emblematic of his style, as I have heard he gets weird and unique in some of his works, but I didn’t detect much of that in this novel (or I’ve just developed a very high baseline for weird). The novel is about the life of Elias Rukla, a middle-aged Norwegian literature teacher in Oslo. In a kind of banal rut in life, Elias Rukla teaches Norwegian literature to bored high schoolers, focussing primarily on the works of Ibsen and other Norwegian classics, without much passion for teaching or any interest in his students, or interest in his perception by the students. He has taught in the same gymnas for 25 years. He has very few friends in the school faculty and, despite everyone’s advanced education, cannot seem to find interesting conversations anywhere. He is in a failing, loveless marriage of dubious circumstances, his daughter has moved out of his house, and it all leads to him reaching his breaking point, finally snapping, and having his worst ever day in his entire teaching career.

Reflecting on how he got to this point on his way into town, he thinks about how he met his wife, who was actually the wife of his best friend who he met studying literature and philosophy in university. Chronology shifts into a meaningful recollection of his university years—perhaps the only time in Elias Rukla’s life where he felt happy and content. It is a slow, painful unwinding from his happy university life to the sad, fretful, timid and emasculated life he now leads. To say anymore would spoil the beats, but it is hard to talk of this 160-page novel without describing everything, so I will force myself to stop.

Solstad writes in a very controlled, histrionic and pathetic stream-of-consciousness in third-person, with the protagonist continuously overthinking, self-critiquing, looping back into thoughts, and catastrophising—in other words, ‘shyness’ is the dominating factor in the protagonist’s life, and Solstad’s presentation of this pathetic man is so painfully relatable, and oftentimes quite funny. The style reminds me a lot of Woolf, with the constantly chronology-shifting third-person stream-of-consciousness, and the novella features no chapters and only the occasional scene-break, so it was very easy for me to get drawn in by the prose, reading in long, hypnotic spurts. A much sadder version of Mrs Dalloway, perhaps. Sad, Norwegian Mrs Dalloway meets William Stoner, perhaps.

Though the novel is fantastically written, I unfortunately can’t say it left much of an impression on me, with the emotional thrust of the novel being too abstracted and lost in this stream-of-consciousness. A lot of it is told subtextually, as Elias Rukla, in true Norwegian fashion, bottles up his emotions in a sense of false lucidity and masculine logic. Although we are given a window into Elias Rukla’s thoughts, I never felt we accessed his soul. The novel also felt like it lingered a bit too much on certain scenes (I don’t think we need to think so much about Ibsen).

Nonetheless, I am definitely interested in reading more of Solstag’s works, especially as this novel was only chosen at random from what was available second-hand. An incredibly gifted writer with a very clear love for the Norwegian influences he wears on his sleeve. I am sure Norway and International literature lost a giant in his passing this year. 

Shyness and Dignity

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