Aliss at the Fire

Written in a stream-of-consciousness style that engrosses as much as it frustrates, Norwegian Jon Fosse's spectral novel, Aliss at the Fire, moves back and forth in time to depict the anguish of a woman, Signe, lost to her memories. As she lies alone on a bench in her house, Signe's mind drifts: to the fjord where her emotionally distant husband Asle died years earlier, and further, into the imagined consciousness of Asle and his dead ancestors. Fosse creates a force field with his nearly punctuation-free text in which memories are superimposed over each other and psychic boundaries are porous. One character seems to be imagining and remembering everything but, in this liminal zone, anything is possible—except escape or change. Yet as Aliss slowly builds tension through its haze of perceptions, Fosse's maddeningly repetitive monological approach undermines any attempt at engagement. Known primarily for his plays, Fosse displays a dramaturgical sensibility for detail: a toy boat and a rowboat, both linked to the death of Asle, and a fire seen at different times from different angles on a beach at night are imbued with mystery and force whenever they crop up. Unfortunately, that force is continually washed away by the monotonous tone of Signe's narrative voice. Suggesting emotion without ever quite expressing it, Aliss at the Fire is an intriguing read, but just not intriguing enough.