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8little_paws's review
3.0
This is a book about two friends in a small Norwegian town, Tommy and Jim, and how they support each other during hardship as kids and how their friendship ends as adults. Petterson has a voice all his own, and Tommy's tale really worked for me--you learn about Tommy's past and how he got to where he is, and how he refuses to succumb to what it would seem fate has in store for him. However, I wish we heard more about Jim. I didn't get as full a sense of his motivations as I did with Tommy. That said, I feel like this incredibly sad story will haunt me for some time.
bluepigeon's review
4.0
I Refuse tells the story of two boys, who grow up and apart. The point of separation, if not literally, then perhaps emotionally, might be pinpointed to a split second in their boyhood. This moment, this first crack on the ice, that so loudly and decisively cracks open the whole landscape the boys are standing on, is visited once, briefly, and then revisited in a conversation (or the memory of a conversation) later, which leads to the more decisive split between the two best friends. Yet, I cannot say that the book is about this, not really. It is, or it seems like Petterson is trying to say something with this, but the result eluded me just a bit. I thought, reading it through, that something happened on that day the boys, two best friends, went ice skating on the frozen lake, something surprising and shocking, something that deeply affected them, something that will make us understand how they turned out (especially how Jim turned out). But nothing. It was just a moments of clumsiness that lead to nothing drastic, all was well, end of skating on the lake, done. Except perhaps Petterson is trying to show us the fragility of Jim's mind, that the boy's mind was already in an anxious state, ready to come undone in the seams, perhaps that's why he just cannot seem to let this insignificant event go, perhaps that's why he is paranoid that his best friend doesn't trust him anymore, perhaps, perhaps. So the book is about this, this particular pivotal point in a solid gold friendship, but it isn't, because nothing much about it is said or done, and in the end there isn't enough to grab onto.
The novel is also about a very small, rural town, two boys (and other children) who grow up in broken homes, abuse and neglect, and many strangers helping the children get by, grow up, become adults, have lives. There are strange relationships that somehow make sense as the story progresses and past events are (dimly) illuminated. There are many loose threads, nothing really gets resolved, and the future is uncertain. In that sense, Petterson's narrative weave is very realistic in its lack of clear directive. There is nothing contrived here, and everything flows (unsurely) as it does in real life. There is surprisingly very little about the adult lives of the boys, and when there is something, it is about their relationships with their parents (or in Tommy's case, his foster-father/friend/boss) at the end of their lives. Perhaps the only one we hear consistently throughout life is Siri, her childhood a bit of a blur, but her adult life clearer than the lives of Jim and Tommy. This creates an interesting imbalance and emphasizes the melancholy both men are feeling towards their childhood and especially their childhood friendship.
Petterson's writing style is sparse and repetitive, as if someone is telling a story in their head, returning to the bothersome parts over and over again. It has an eerie effect, though it is the only thing that seems over-utilized. It makes every character sound neurotic, even though their actions do not indicate a neurotic mind. Of course, it helps the melancholy. The dry, repetitive language is often disturbed by abrupt injections of beautiful and poetic language, which emphasizes the heft of both. Long, stream-of-consciousness type of writing is sometimes interrupted with short, quick sentences, which is also effective in creating contrast between what the character expected to happen and what actually happened.
Overall, I Refuse is a meditative novel about the choices in life, or lack there of. The title in English is horrible, in my opinion, but perhaps it sounds much better in Norwegian.
Thanks to the publisher and Goodreads First Reads for a free ARC in exchange for my honest review.
The novel is also about a very small, rural town, two boys (and other children) who grow up in broken homes, abuse and neglect, and many strangers helping the children get by, grow up, become adults, have lives. There are strange relationships that somehow make sense as the story progresses and past events are (dimly) illuminated. There are many loose threads, nothing really gets resolved, and the future is uncertain. In that sense, Petterson's narrative weave is very realistic in its lack of clear directive. There is nothing contrived here, and everything flows (unsurely) as it does in real life. There is surprisingly very little about the adult lives of the boys, and when there is something, it is about their relationships with their parents (or in Tommy's case, his foster-father/friend/boss) at the end of their lives. Perhaps the only one we hear consistently throughout life is Siri, her childhood a bit of a blur, but her adult life clearer than the lives of Jim and Tommy. This creates an interesting imbalance and emphasizes the melancholy both men are feeling towards their childhood and especially their childhood friendship.
Petterson's writing style is sparse and repetitive, as if someone is telling a story in their head, returning to the bothersome parts over and over again. It has an eerie effect, though it is the only thing that seems over-utilized. It makes every character sound neurotic, even though their actions do not indicate a neurotic mind. Of course, it helps the melancholy. The dry, repetitive language is often disturbed by abrupt injections of beautiful and poetic language, which emphasizes the heft of both. Long, stream-of-consciousness type of writing is sometimes interrupted with short, quick sentences, which is also effective in creating contrast between what the character expected to happen and what actually happened.
Overall, I Refuse is a meditative novel about the choices in life, or lack there of. The title in English is horrible, in my opinion, but perhaps it sounds much better in Norwegian.
Thanks to the publisher and Goodreads First Reads for a free ARC in exchange for my honest review.
jennikreads's review
3.0
I REFUSE is the story of two best friends who meet by chance on a bridge 35 years after they last saw each other.
The story follows Jim, Tommy, and Siri (Tommy’s sister) as the story is told in a non-linear timeline. We find out about both Jim and Tommy’s upbringing and about the events that lead to their lives as they are today and what caused them to part ways so many years ago.
I’ll be honest. I expected to love this based on the previous works I have read of Petterson’s. Sadly, I didn’t love this. I found it to be very maudlin. The writing was beautiful, as I expected from Petterson, but I just was not captured by the story. I also felt that the non-linear story telling muddled the story for me, and the ending as abrupt and left me with more questions than answers.
CW: abuse, suicide, child abuse, depression
The story follows Jim, Tommy, and Siri (Tommy’s sister) as the story is told in a non-linear timeline. We find out about both Jim and Tommy’s upbringing and about the events that lead to their lives as they are today and what caused them to part ways so many years ago.
I’ll be honest. I expected to love this based on the previous works I have read of Petterson’s. Sadly, I didn’t love this. I found it to be very maudlin. The writing was beautiful, as I expected from Petterson, but I just was not captured by the story. I also felt that the non-linear story telling muddled the story for me, and the ending as abrupt and left me with more questions than answers.
CW: abuse, suicide, child abuse, depression
renny's review
4.0
I loved the formal qualities of I Refuse. It reads dreamily, like a black and white Bergman film. There are no question marks. The sentences run on in a way that holds you in the narrative, and the environment surrounding Oslo- the cold, the water and ice, and the darkness, will envelop your imagination in palpable gloom.
The story skips around chronologically between a handful of characters. It was not so clearly defined that I will remember, and I'm fine with that, I think this is Petterson's objective. How could a single book possibly contain full resolution of several human lives. Why even try. Some characters endure abuse, some fall apart, some grow old, none are happily resolved.
Read it for the atmosphere, while you wait for volume six of Knausgaards "My Struggle" to be published in English.
The story skips around chronologically between a handful of characters. It was not so clearly defined that I will remember, and I'm fine with that, I think this is Petterson's objective. How could a single book possibly contain full resolution of several human lives. Why even try. Some characters endure abuse, some fall apart, some grow old, none are happily resolved.
Read it for the atmosphere, while you wait for volume six of Knausgaards "My Struggle" to be published in English.
psr's review
5.0
This is the fifth novel of Petterson's that I've read, and it maintains the very high standard of his oeuvre, from my perspective. "I Refuse" deals with growing up, friendship and its loss, family breakdown, social change and the emptiness of materialism, among other matters. It's familiar territory for Petterson, perhaps, but he approaches it differently in this novel. Through multiple narratives and time shifts, he shines new light on his material and delivers fresh insights that caused this reader to reflect upon his own life.
You don't read Petterson for the laughs, though there is a dark humour at work here. His purpose isn't to provide the reader with distraction, but I found the fragmented narrative compelling. It's a starkly realist story of life's hardships and disappointments. There are no neat endings here. Parts are oblique and defy interpretation - much like life. The storytelling, characterisation and prose - at least, in Don Bartlett's translation - are all executed beautifully. Highly recommended for those who enjoy writing that reflects the formlessness of lived experience, its resistance to meaning.
You don't read Petterson for the laughs, though there is a dark humour at work here. His purpose isn't to provide the reader with distraction, but I found the fragmented narrative compelling. It's a starkly realist story of life's hardships and disappointments. There are no neat endings here. Parts are oblique and defy interpretation - much like life. The storytelling, characterisation and prose - at least, in Don Bartlett's translation - are all executed beautifully. Highly recommended for those who enjoy writing that reflects the formlessness of lived experience, its resistance to meaning.
arirang's review
4.0
"Dark"The opening sentence of the novel - short, but bitter not sweet - very much sets the tone for Per Petterson's most recent novel, I Refuse.
The English translation is by the wonderful Don Bartlett, also translator of Karl Ove Knausgaard and Lars Saabye Christensen, and to be congratulated for successfully reflecting such different voices.
This is the 7th of Per Petterson's books to be published in English, all of which I've read and very much enjoyed. As is often notes, Petterson's works all seem to share a common themes, indeed the same characters and character-names often reappear, but the effect is that taken together they form a larger and more powerful work.
Petterson, of course, first came to prominence in the UK with the IFFP Winning "Out Stealing Horses". Many of the books subsequently published in English were actually written in the original Norwegian before this (Ashes in my mouth, It's Fine by Me, To Siberia, In the Wake) and suffer a little in comparison by, understandably being earlier works, not showing any stylistic development.
Only I Curse the River of Time, and this book, I Refuse, were written subsequently, and they both distinctly push Petterson's work forward. I Curse the River of Time uses more complex language, I Refuse uses a more complex narrative style, the story jumps back and forth in time, and is told from the perspective of different characters, both as first person and indirect narration. The multiple narrators help provide different perspectives, and fill in some, but not all, of the gaps in the story for the reader, although I wasn't totally convinced by the approach as the narrative voice doesn't really shift.
The plot, never a key element of Petterson's novels, relies a little too much on coincidence. The chance meeting between two characters from which the book derives is natural, but some other points appear more artificially forced.
However, the power of I Refuse lies, as always in Petterson's novels, with the understated but powerful prose, as much as with what remains unsaid as what is on the page.
I Refuse tells the story of two childhood friends, Jim and Tommy, now in their 50s, who unexpectedly encounter each other, very early one morning, for the first time in 35 years. Their chance meeting causes disruption to both of their lives.
As with most of Patterson's characters, both come from broken homes: Jim is an only child and his father seems entirely absent and he clearly has a troubled relationship with his deeply devout mother, albeit this is only hinted at. Tommy has three younger sisters, but his mother ran way from his abusive father when he was 12, leaving everything behind including the children, and at age 14, Tommy hits back against his father, causing him also to flee, and the family is broken up by social services.
Tommy ostensibly appears to have the more troubled background, and we learn more of it, but goes on to have a seemingly successful business career, so that by the time he meets Jim he is quite wealthy, although he is single and there are oblique mentions of a failed relationship. Jim appears much the more troubled in practice, although we learn little directly, reflecting his unwillingness, even inability, to confront his own issues.
Their relationship, and Jim's life in particular hinges on a seemingly trivial incident when they are both 18. Out ice-skating on a lake they hear a cracking sound, which with hindsight they realise is simply the ice settling but initially causes them to try to return to solid land as quickly as they can:
"And it was going to go wrong, they could both feel it, or at least Jim did, so whether he meant to or not, he struck out with his right arm, and his hand in its mitten hit Tommy in the chest and knocked him backwards while Jim shot forwards.....[Jim] called in a strangely muffled voice...'I know that it's just settling, that's what it's doing, I know and I didn't get scared, that's not what happened, I didn't mean to stop you. I just tripped and had to grab something, I lost my balance, you got that, didn't you?'"The incident - Jim seemingly betraying his friend in an everyman-for-himself panic, troubles Jim greatly: a suicide attempt follows and even after a gap of 35 years he is anxious to repeat his assurances to Tommy as soon as they meet.
Their fateful meeting leads to an ominous, but unresolved, sense of climax as the book ends - indeed the last chapters, set in the night following Tommy & Jim's meeting, are ominously subtitled "The last night". Jim appears to be contemplating suicide (again) and Tommy throwing away his successful career and starting life again, with a married woman, but as the book ends these issues are unresolved - and Tommy & Jim are possibly about to meet again.
And the relevance of the books title becomes clear - following his meeting with Jim, Tommy's says "I refuse" to forgive his father, the married woman decides "I refuse" to stay any longer with her husband, and while the words are not uttered, Jim clearly refuses to forget the incident on the ice and his own sense of guilt.
The chapters of the book involving the other characters - Tommy's sister, his mother, and a family friend who took him in at age 14 - are less successful, but do give rise to one of the books more emotionally wrenching scene where Tommy's mother, who took no personal mementos when she ran away, cuts out photos of children from magazines that she imagines might be what her children look like now.
Overall a worthwhile addition to Petterson's powerful oeuvre.