Morning and Evening is the first book I read by Norwegian author Jon Fosse, and it won’t be the last. I hadn’t cried since reading Yu Hua’s book To Live. And I don’t cry while reading books; is a rare occasion. Morning and Night touched me from a very different place; I always found myself missing my grandfather.
Morning and Evening is about the day Johhannes was born and died. Since there is no punctuation in the novel, you can feel as if the whole book consists of a sentence. However, it by no means offers a tiring reading. On the contrary, the writing flows like a river.
In the first episode, we share the excitement of Johhannes’s father and the dreams for his tiny son, who has just entered his life. In the second part, in the death of Johhannes, we only read Johhannes. Let me state right away; it isn’t a bothersome or sorrowful novel. It will only make you think a lot about death. I always thought about my loved ones’ death rather than my own—most of all, my grandfather. I silently cried; for both Johhannes and my grandfather. If you have recently lost someone you love, I would say wait a while to read.
On the other hand, it could be a kind of therapy, but I really don’t know. Think about it before reading it. As soon as I finished the book, I started to write about it, and I realized I’m not over it yet. It is a good book. It’ll draw you in. I don’t know why I always wanted to listen to classical music while reading it. I wonder if you will too. Enjoy!
Morning and Evening
A child who will be named Johannes is born. An old man named Johannes dies. Between these two points, Jon Fosse gives us the details of an entire life, starkly compressed. Beginning with Johannes’s father’s thoughts as his wife goes into labor, and ending with Johannes’s own thoughts as he embarks upon a day in his life when everything is exactly the same, yet totally different, Morning and Evening is a novel concerning the beautiful dream that our lives have meaning.
Jon Fosse
Jon Fosse was born in 1959 on the west coast of Norway and has written over thirty books and twenty-eight plays that have been translated into over 40 languages. He is one of the world’s most produced living playwrights. In 2007, he was made a Knight in France’s National Order of Merit, and he was awarded the International Ibsen Award in 2010.
Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
