(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
Tonje Tornes
author
tonje@rosa.net
[solstad] «But it did not bother me much that she did not have a sense of humor. I have never demanded that women have a sense of humor. To be honest, is it not too much to ask, that in addition to its lush shapes, small hands, narrow shoulders, its sensual voices, and its movements (…) in addition to all this should also possess a divine humorous gift? For my part, I have always sought humor where it can be found, in company with men. "This is how High School teacher Knut Pedersen thinks about Solstad's so far most profiled female figure: Nina Skåtøy. Why does Pedersen think so about her? Why was it important for author Dag Solstad to write Nina Skåtøy's lack of sense of humor into the novel? Skåtøy is described as both puritanical, naive and uncompromising. Along with the lack of sense of humor, she not only becomes Solstad's most determined woman, but she also becomes frightening – almost crazy. At the same time, the quote above suggests that Knut Pedersen is not at all surprised by Skåtøy's lack of sense of humor. He takes it more for granted, as if the laughter gene is not something women are born with.
Lack of reflection. I have read many of Solstad's books, and I have no doubt that this is strong literature. Strong because Solstad says something about the existential longing, he embraces life's apparent meaninglessness – apparently because for this reader it is precisely books like Solstad's that make sense – and manages in a dry-witty way to draw a different Norwegian story. Nevertheless, it often itches annoyingly in the gender gaze when I read descriptions of Solstad's many female figures. I do not understand why such a conscious author evokes one wandering female cliché after another, and this without his otherwise so reflective and analytical main characters problematizing their views and perceptions of these women. The exception is Irr! Green! from 1969 where roles – including gender roles – are constantly problematized. But in Solstad's eighties and nineties literature, the gender role problem is gone. What remains is a
dimensional female figures, which I as a reader do not recognize myself in or can identify with. Thus, I experience a strangeness, and therefore also a duality, towards Solstad's novels, which I – after hearing myself for – perceive that many male readers do not have.
Lovely women. If Solstad introduces a woman as a novel character, it is because she is in an erotic tension to the male protagonist (Here, of course, there are exceptions, such as young Isabella in T. Singer.). The most obvious example of this is Turid Lammers in Eleventh novel, book eighteen. Bjørn Hansen leaves his wife and goes with young and beautiful Turid to Kongsberg. Their marriage consists in Bjørn Hansen enjoying his wife's beautiful appearance, and she enjoys enjoying it. She is a well-articulated and formed woman, but these are pages that Hansen cares less about. As her beauty begins to fade, Hansen's love also gradually cools. All the "grace" is gone, and Hansen wants nothing more from her. The final break comes when Turid popularizes Kongsberg's amateur theatrical performance of the Wild Duck by playing on his studious charm and people's humorous sense. What happens next with Turid we do not know. She falls out of the story and is left in the memory as a woman concerned only with her own "grace" and "charm", completely devoid of the reflection ability that leads Bjørn Hansen.
More beauties. The women's 'grace' is repeated as a special feature most of Solstad's male protagonists fall for. The young student Cecilie in Roman 1987 is seduced by the twice as old professor Fjord. He lusts after her beauty and grace, which gives Cecilie a feeling of freedom. She is free because her lover does not demand more of her than just being beautiful and adorable. As a reader, I would certainly not call Cecilie free, rather totally objectified by her older lover and apparently – as long as she is still beautiful – happy with it. It is also striking that neither of these two lovers sees the power structure their relationship is based on. But before Fjord finds Cecilie, he has a brief marriage to the intellectual Mette Stang-Hansen, the woman many male readers present as Solstad's "stupid" female figure. Fjord thinks about her:
«This woman was the one who wanted to be my wife, (…) And she wanted to be that because she admired me (…) she also admired me for my abilities. On her own behalf she had no ambitions (…) »
Fjord sets the point for marriage by not living up to the career opportunities she stands out for him. May be Mette Glup, in the sense that she gets a good diploma, but also she remains standing as a reason: a career agent for her husband, completely without the ability of self-analysis.
Another "adorable" Solstad woman is Eva Linde in Genance and Dignity. Elias Rukla takes over his good friend Johan Corneliussen's wife after the latter leaves for the United States. In the past he has hardly had a proper conversation with Eva, but he is still proud to have taken over his friend's boyfriend. Throughout the novel, Elias has had a platonic love relationship with Eva and Johan, Johan has been in charge of the conversation, while Eva has been in charge of beauty. Now Eva's beauty alone must carry love. And as it fades, a miss grows in Elias Rukla, missing after the big call. He longs for someone to talk to, and not for a second does it occur to him that this interlocutor could have been his own wife Eva, the one who is continuing education and wants to become a more well-read person.
Of course, I see as a reader how flat Genesis and dignity would have been if Elijah had found answers to his intellectual quest with his own wife. But as I have already pointed out, Eva Linde's thoroughness is not an exception in Solstad's writing. We also have young Ylva Johnsen whom AG Larsen falls for in the novel Attempts to Describe the Impervious. The novel as a whole has many layers and qualities that I cannot go into more detail here. But AG Larsen's unwillingness (or ability?) To see Ylva as something other than an object for her horniness has catastrophic consequences for the young Ylva, because through AG she becomes aware of her sexual power and thus needs to disengage from her young husband, Bjørn Johnsen.
Male blindness. I am aware of the counter-arguments that can be used against such a post I am making here. The worst thing one can think of is politically correct literature. And my objections are feminist and thus also politically correct. I am fully aware that all the women I have now listed are literary interesting, because they help to create thoughts and twists in Solstad's novels, and the novels are of course superior to the politically correct. Therefore, there are also many readers who think this critique is unimportant. "Some stupid women must be able to live with when a novel is so good?" Well, I also think the novels I have listed here are great art, but this recognition should not automatically put a lid on the fact that Solstad uses stereotypical female characters. As a reader, I am occasionally a little depressed by meeting the beautiful but empty heads again and again. It is striking how these female supporting characters are always described as shallow, while Solstad's many male supporting characters – exemplified here with Johan Corneliussen, Werner Ludal, yes even Bjørn Johnsen – have a versatile role to play. Solstad rarely lets a woman say something clever, or utter any form of self-reflection.
The author's flawlessness. Solstad may not be surprised to be arrested for his many female and fictional objects of fascination (In the documentary Man Without a Past, Solstad admits that his female characters primarily act as fascination objects, and he understands that this provokes some readers.). He may even achieve a desired point by being primarily female readers who respond to these depictions. Because when this criticism is almost absent from his male readers, it becomes obvious to think that they are blind to this relationship at Solstad. And so the next scary thought is that Solstad's protagonists are not only representatives of a fictional world, but that they also reflect the intellectual Norwegian man's attitudes, not only to sizes like popular culture and big conversation, but also to woman. A scary, but also extremely fascinating thought. For, in any way, Solstad's women's characters are reflections of the intellectual man's view of women, this country is really not as equal as we like to adorn ourselves.
