A review by arirang
I Refuse by Per Petterson

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.