Novel
The Birds
Fuglane
Tarjei Vesaas · 1957
Synopsis
Mattis, a man of about thirty with the mind of a child, lives with his older sister Hege in an isolated house by a lake; she knits sweaters to support them both. The villagers mock him, but he finds immense meaning in small things: the passing of a woodcock over the house becomes a letter that only he can read. Hege urges him to work; he becomes a ferryman on the lake, and a lumberjack whom he ferries across enters their lives.
Context
The novel appeared in 1957 from Gyldendal. Britannica reads in it a plea for tolerance towards the outcast, and the Books from Norway database stresses that the reader comes to share Mattis's empathy. Régis Boyer translated it into French in 1976, and Marina Heide gave a new translation from Cambourakis in 2022; Adel Hakim staged it in 1999 under the title Mattis et les oiseaux. The English translation by Torbjørn Støverud and Michael Barnes was reissued by Penguin in 2019.
Who it is for
A short, slow novel, translated into French and English, in which everything is seen through the eyes of a man whom others consider simple.
Prizes and reception
Regarded by Britannica as its author's greatest work, and since adapted for the screen.
Sources for this page 5
The pages consulted to check this page.