Allsang : roman

Omtale

When they were young and ambitious, Ivan and Marie were both pupils at the Opera school. Marie became a diva with engagements to sing on all the world's great opera stages. Ivan became Director General of the Opera House in Oslo. This is Ivan's story. ‘Eivind Buene’s new novel exudes love, musicality and dramatic tension; it is skilfully balanced between strong crescendo and lingering decrescendo. ... Buene is outstandingly excellent in his use of language and composition, psychology and eventful accounts, with an unusual eye for tragi-comic effect. ... His sentences are laden with intensity, the characters are full of life and the painterly, lively descriptions of operatic dramaturgy, cast of characters and plots stay throughout as effective overtones in the narrative.’ VG ‘… a musical text that the reader warms to; elegant and pleasing, while at the same time impressing you as composed on the basis of principles quite different from "building up tension" and “character development”. In other words, this is a novel well out of the ordinary that is nonetheless reads as a coherent work. ... The melodramatic (and somewhat geriatric) final episode depends on grand emotion just as real operas should, and so brilliantly brings a solidly constructed opera novel to its close.’ Bergens Tidende ‘Awareness of form: Authors who have come to literature from music bring with them a special self-confidence about their new field. ... A joy to read ... This comes from the strong body of text, which dares much in term of composition without relegating content.’ Klassekampen ‘A beautiful language, elegantly composed. ... Allsang is an accurate story, told in a seductively beautiful language that never topples over into clichés even though the art of opera consistently depends on kitsch – at least in this novel. The language is free from strained replication of direct speech or attempts to drive the action too hard. The novel’s composition is excellent: there is not one episode too many, or too few, and Eivind Buene’s patient work on plot twists is impressive. ... When Allsang ends with an elegant take on a familiar Biblical theme, that of denial, as a reader I look back at a happy experience. Now, in the middle of the run-up to Christmas with commercial tat on the radio, reading this novel is cleansing – it doesn’t mess around and it doesn’t rely on cheap trickery. It is a novel that dares to focus on an art form and to try to contribute to the understanding of it.’ Aftenposten ‘… an exceptionally stylish and engrossing novel, written with such linguistic skill that it brings out the music in every sentence.’ Stavanger Aftenblad ‘Character and language work beautifully together the prose passages of this novel. Buene’s strength is his wealth of vocabulary and change of pace. The way in which Buene uses expressions drawn from the world of music add a linguistic lift.’ Vårt Land