| Norwegian title: | Leve posthornet! |
| Author: | Vigdis Hjorth |
| Binding: | Innbundet |
| Year: | 2012 |
| Pages: | 184 |
| Publisher: | Cappelen Damm |
| Språk: | Bokmål |
| ISBN/EAN: | 9788202392536 |
Winner of the Critics’ Award 2012
Ellinor is a communications consultant in her thirties. She can’t help but feel that her life is lacking meaningful intensity, that her life is a trivial contrast to her feelings of despair.
When a colleague suddenly leaves the firm Ellinor has to see through a project all by herself. By teaching postal workers in Postkom about media, influence and politics, Ellinor is supposed to better equip them in their opposition to the implementation of EU’s Postal Legislation. However, the question arises; who is teaching whom?
Norwegian reviews:
‘If you are looking for a novel about loneliness and the postal service, chose this one. ... It is practically impossible to decide where to begin when discussing Hjorth’s novels. They are immediate, but also stay with you, kicking around in your mind for a good while afterwards. This time, the story even manages to combine politics, the postal service and a lonely young woman. Can this really be of interest? Yes, it can, when Hjorth does it.’
VG
... a fantastic book. There are few contemporary writers who explore loneliness with greater courage. Hurrah for Hjorth!
KLASSEKAMPEN
I’ve rarely experienced such high from a novel as from Vigdis Hjorth’s new work about the European Union’s postal directive. ... One of her very best books. ... I’m almost tempted to shout Long live Vigdis Hjorth!
AFTENPOSTEN
Vigdis Hjorth's Leve posthornet! deserves applause for many things, not least for being something as improbable as a successful political novel about (hold tight now!) the postal directive. ... In every way, a very worthwhile novel by Vigdis Hjorth.
BERGENS TIDENDE
Few writers can describe a woman near the edge as Hjorth can. ... It is almost the most engaging element in this book. And perhaps also the most original. Hjorth foregrounds politics, not the international kind, but the grey local authority dealings – and shows us its crucial role in our lives. This, in a novel whose apparently most straightforward formulations contain within them an ambiguity and depth that is uniquely Hjorth’s.
DAGBLADET
Hidden inside the novel lies a small pearl of a story about a letter that only arrived at its destination because the postman truly committed himself to find the proper addressee. This makes Leve posthornet! into more than the narrative about a communication advisor and the postal directive. It also follows that Hjorth’s novel is not primarily about atomised contemporary individuals or nostalgia for letters written by hand, but about communication. If you decide to read one novel about the postal directive this year, it should be this one.
DAGENS NÆRINGSLIV
An impressive journey of purification. ... In Leve posthornet! , Vigdis Hjorth immerses herself in existential seriousness. Her book is a loud scream; Hjorth has written a powerful novel about identity, authenticity and about making courageous choices ... her perceptions are acute and she writes very well.
VÅRT LAND
... when Hjorth takes on the problematic issues of politics and of life in general, with her familiar wit and existential courage, all you can do is give in.
DAG OG TID
It is great feat to write something as rare as a political and personal novel without creating something that is both dull and too internalised. As always, she composes brilliantly precise sentences, with her utterly unique fingertip feel for flow and choice of words.
DAGSAVISEN
A rare, realistic, not-post-modern box of candies: a story about politics, poetry and melancholy.
ADRESSEAVISEN
International Reviews:
Quirky, unsettling.
KIRKUS REVIEWS
The ordinary becomes vibrant and life-affirming in Long Live the Post Horn!, an engrossing novel about how even hopeless battles are worth fighting.
FOREWORD REVIEWS
Hjorth’s substantive and witty novel of personal growth delivers on multiple levels.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
An emotional, philosophical read … this book is wonderful, and I would urge you to seek it out.
ELSPELLS BOOKS
A superb story about a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
THE MODERN NOVEL
Wrenching tenderness from the mouth of irony, Hjorth proves how major effects don’t always come from the heavy-foot pedals.
John Freeman, LIT HUB (Most Anticipated Books of 2020)
Long Live the Post Horn! is a brilliant study of the mundane, full of unexpected detours and driving prose … Hjorth’s novel ingeniously orbits the intimate stories that are possible only when a character has put words on paper and sent them through the post.
John Freeman, NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
An engaging, well-honed novel … Hjorth’s writing is both spare and, in an understated way, humorous.
POPMATTERS
A wry and thoughtful take on contemporary life and love … Full of gorgeous Scandi gloom and bleak truths about human relationships.
DAILY MAIL
[In] Long Live the Post Horn!, the saga of the EU postal directive is an inspired context for a story about personal despair and political awakening.
4COLUMNS
An acidic portrait of one woman’s fight to save the postal service.
NEW REPUBLIC
Hjorth holds a magnifying glass to her characters and they fry like ants under the merciless sunlight of her writing. No one of them escapes unscathed, there are no heroes or villains; what we get is a picture of life in a social democracy that is fraying at the edges.
Charlotte Barslund, translator of Long Live the Port Horn! in LITERARY HUB
Hjorth expertly interrogates feelings of inadequacy in concise paragraphs of wry prose.
NEW STATESMAN
Droll and rather delightful.
MONOCLE
A novel about the chicanery of governmental politics has no right to be this absorbing.
MORNING STAR
A big strange wonderful paper hug of a book … I cannot recommend it highly enough.
LITERARY ADDICT
Hjorth asks us to imagine a world where those with narrative power protect the stories of the people over the interests of commerce … The timing was right for this book in Norway in 2012, and the timing is right for us now. A novel like Long Live the Post Horn! does not come around often enough.
LOS ANGELES REVIEW OF BOOK
Vinner av Kritikerprisen 2012 i kategorien beste skjønnlitterære voksenbok
Vigdis Hjorth
Vigdis Hjorth
Vigdis Hjorth
"Skal du lese én roman om ensomhet og postvesenet, la det bli denne.(...)
(...) Det er nesten umulig å vite hvor man skal begynne når man skal snakke om Hjorths romaner. De er umiddelbare, men blir hengende og sparke i deg en stund etterpå. Denne gangen er det intet mindre enn politikk, postvesen og en ung ensom kvinne som forenes. Kan det blir interessant? Ja, hos Hjorth kan det."
«The poet laureate of this kind of tale is the Norwegian novelist Vigdis Hjorth, whose brisk, skittering books pounce on everyday experiences, revealing beneath their forensically detailed surfaces pools of risk and doubt. ... Hjorth’s latest novel to appear in English, “Long Live the Post Horn!,” is a brilliant study of the mundane, full of unexpected detours and driving prose. It is also the best post office novel ever written, first published in 2013 but arriving in the United States just in time for an election that has made routine mail delivery one of the tensest political battlegrounds in years. ... Hjorth’s novel, lucidly translated by Charlotte Barslund, ingeniously orbits the intimate stories that are possible only when a character has put words on paper and sent them through the post.
John Freeman, — The New York Times(...)en knallfin bok. Det er ikke mange som utforsker ensomhet med større mot i dag. Heia Hjorth!"
Kaja Schjerven Mollerin, KlassekampenSjelden jeg har blitt så høy på en roman som av Vigdis Hjorths bok om EUs postdirektiv... En av hennes aller beste bøker....Jeg er nesten fristet til å si Leve Vigdis Hjorth!
Anne Merethe K.Prinos, Aftenposten"Vigdis Hjorths Leve posthornet! kan applauderes for mangt, ikke minst for å være noe så usannsynlig som en vellykket politisk roman om (hold deg fast) postdirektivet."
"På alle måter en vellykket roman fra Vigdis Hjorth."
"Det er få som kan beskrive en kvinne på randen så godt som Hjorth(...)"
"Nettopp det er det sympatiske med denne boka. Og kanskje også det originale. Hjorth løfter frem politikken, ikke den internasjonale storpolitikken, men den grå kommunepolitikken– og viser hvor eksistensielt viktig den kan være. I en roman der de tilsynelatende enkleste formuleringer bærer en Hjorthsk dobbelthet og dybde i seg.»
Cathrine Krøger, Dagbladet«Gjemt inne i romanen er en liten perle av en fortelling om et brev som bare nådde frem fordi postbudet virkelig la seg i selen for å finne riktig adressat. Denne gjør Leve posthornet! til noe mer enn en historien om kommunikasjonsrådgiveren og postdirektivet. Dette blir
dermed en bok som ikke primært handler om det atomiserte samtidsmennesket eller nostalgien ved håndskrevne brev, men om kommunikasjon. Skal man lese en roman om postdirektivet i år, må det vel være denne.»
"Det virker så lett å lese bøkene til Vigdis Hjorth. Ingen språklige krumspring som tvinger oss til å lese sakte, historier som glir … episoder til å flire av. Både «Leve posthornet» og andre av romanene hennes krever vilje til å reflektere, for her er det mye å tenke over.(...)Les boken, lag eselører, strek under – tenk, og tenk mer. Leve Vigdis Hjorth. Leve alvoret. Leve de modige valgene."
Helga Lilleland, Varden"Vigdis Hjorth vender seg inn i et eksistensielt alvor i Leve posthornet! Boka er et stort skrik, og Hjorth har skrevet en sterk roman om identitet, autentisitet og om å velge modig.(...)Det er skarpt sett, og meget godt skrevet."
Eskil Skjeldal, Vårt Land"...når Hjorth går laus på politiske og eksistensielle problemstillingar
med velkjent vidd og eksistensielt mot, er det berre å gje seg over."
"En rar og real post-umodernistisk godtepose av politikk, poesi og
tungsinn."
"Det er enormt godt gjort å skrive noe såpass sjeldent som en politisk-personlig roman uten at den blir kjedelig og intern. Som alltid i lysende presise setninger, med en helt unik fingerspissfølelse for flyt og ordvalg."
Gerd Elin Stava Sandve, Dagsavisen| Denmark |
| Poland |
| Turkey |
| United Kingdom |
| United States |
