Life as a Circus Namesake

The Half Brother, a novel by one of Norway’s premier writers, Lars Saabye Christensen, is at first glance the kind of novel we only expect from contemporary American writers. Originally printed in Oslo in 2001, The Half Brother, translated from the Norwegian to English by Kenneth Steven, is the first of Christensen’s ten novels published in North America during 2004. The Half Brother is a magical and darkly humorous epic following a quirky and conflicted Norwegian family over fifty years. The timeline of the story is an artistic representation of what is linear- constantly connecting the past with the future. The character most closely followed, whose experiences shape the plot of the novel, is Barnum Nilsen, named for the famous American circus ringleader who his father idolized. The story begins at the end of WWII with the rape of Vera, Barnum’s mother, which begets Barnum’s older brother Fred, whose name means Peace in Norwegian. Fred is lanky, dyslexic, unpredictable and mysterious, at once resentful and overprotective when Barnum joins the family. Fred’s intense existence, frequent disappearances, and vows of silence help to shape Barnum’s life. None of the characters introduced throughout the 700 pages are neglected or uninteresting. Barnum, who stands at near-midget stature, is a screenwriter. In adolescence, he begins to write down his daydreams. He often confuses them with reality as he forms the two most definitive friendships of his life: Peder, who loves Barnum unconditionally, and bails him out of his self-sabotage through adulthood, and Vivian, whom he marries, and who is muse to both his happiness and his misery. The story has many mythical elements that interweave character, national history, and heritage. The brother’s grandmother, “The Great One,” was once a silent film star. She teases the boys with fairy tales until the day she is hit by a bus and killed. Barnum and Fred have no choice but to memorize a letter written by their long lost grandfather, who disappeared during an artic expedition to Greenland. Greenland serves as a far away land of mystery to Barnum. Barnum’s father, Arnold Nilsen, was a child inventor of windmills who ran off to join the circus. He hails from a tiny, wind beaten, snow covered island off the coast of Norway. Because of his name, the local priest refuses to christen Barnum, and so in early adulthood he seeks out the minister on his father’s island. Although this story provides plump histories for each character and rich sources of their motivation, the story does not come across as pretentious or as a muddled soap opera. The diversity of experience keeps the plot lines and themes concise and intriguing. In 2002 Christensen receive the highly coveted Nordic Council Literature Prize for The Half Brother. The judges were struck by Christensen’s successful blending of realism and fantasy, history and fiction, saying “The basic tone of the story of Barnum Nilsen and his brother Fred is of absence, loss and grief, but it also embraces a conciliatory ray of humor, friendship and dark hope.” The Half Brother is available in hardcover from Arcade Publishing for $27.