A new translation of a little-known 1947 novel by the famed Norwegian editor, translator, and critic (1890–1960) whose own fiction in English includes The Troll Circle (1992) and The Road to the World’s End (1995). It’s a meditative, rather slow-paced study of the resistance movement in Norway during WWII, as described by an unnamed narrator whose experience as a dedicated member of the anti-Nazi underground is compromised by his attraction to a perhaps apolitical, perhaps traitorous young woman and his lifelong friendship with a man long since identified as a Nazi collaborator. The permutations of commitment and loyalty in both personal and political spheres are made quite believably complex in a commendably thoughtful fiction that shows the ambitious reach, though not the tonal and narrative richness, of Hoel’s other novels.
