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WORK TITLE: Encircling
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S): Frode, Carl
BIRTHDATE: 1/4/1970
WEBSITE:
CITY: Trondheim
STATE:
COUNTRY: Norway
NATIONALITY: Norwegian
https://www.graywolfpress.org/author-list/carl-frode-tiller * http://www.startribune.com/review-encircling-by-carl-frode-tiller-translated-from-the-norwegian-by-barbara-j-haveland/414012363/ * http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/encircling-by-carl-frode-tiller-book-review-hard-hitting-realism-from-the-anti-knausgaard-10351045.html * http://osloliteraryagency.no/book/encircling/
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born January 4, 1970.
EDUCATION:Holds a master’s degree.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer, novelist, playwright, musician, and short-story writer. Musician in the rock band Kong Ler.
AWARDS:Tarjei Vesaas First Book Award, 2001, for The Slope; Critic’s Prize, 2007, Norweigian Book Award Brage Prize, 2007, and Nordic Council Literature Prize, 2008, all for Encirclement; Hunger Prize, 2008; European Prize for Literature, 2009.
WRITINGS
Writer of three plays; writer of short stories and prose for magazines and newspapers.
SIDELIGHTS
Carl Frode Tiller is a Norwegian writer, novelist, and short-story writer. He is considered “one of his generation’s most important novelists,” commented a writer on the Oslo Agency Website. He is “admired for his instantly recognizable, furious prose and his ability to create vivid, complex characters,” noted a biographer on the Gray Wolf Press Website. In 2006, he was named one of the ten best writers under the age of thirty-five. In addition to his prose fiction work, Tiller is also a playwright. A resident of Trondheim, Norway, Tiller plays in the rock band Kong Ler. He holds a degree in history.
Most of Tiller’s novels, written in Norwegian, have not been translated into English. His first novel, Skråninga (title means “The Slope”), received several honors and was recognized as the best Norwegian literary debut of the year.
Encircling is the first novel of a proposed trilogy and the first of Tiller’s major works translated into English. The story is a “beautiful meditation on the subtler ways we fail each other, our quieter forms of grief,” commented USA Today reviewer Charles Finch. The novel is held together by David, a man in his mid-thirties who has suffered a complete loss of memory. David, however, does not appear as a character in the book. Instead, the protagonists are three who knew him at various points in their lives, and who respond to his newspaper advertisement asking anyone from his past to write letters to him about their relationships and their history together.
One of the respondents is Jon, a friend of David’s from their teenage years. Jon, a musician, is in the midst of a creative crisis, and has impulsively quit the band that could have given him the opportunity he needed. In his letter, he describes how he and Jon grew up in a small Norwegian town in the 1980s. More than simply friends, Jon and David experienced a variety of sexual explorations together.
The second person to write David a revealing letter is Arvid, a vicar, who was also David’s step-father. He is facing his own mortality as a cancer patient but sees his reconnection with David as a way to add meaning to his last days. Arvid describes David as being a sort of kindred spirit with him, a studious individual who was always on a quest for knowledge.
David’s third correspondent is Silje, David’s former girlfriend, a woman who seems successful with family and career but who is now involved in a slowly dissolving marriage She knew David as a strong-willed fanatic who refused to compromise even in the toughest of situations. The David of Silje’s reminiscence was sometimes highly unlikable and mean-spirited, doing things such as leaving a women’s scarf at the scene of an accident to muddle the investigation and suggest that an affair might have been going on.
In his narrative, Tiller makes it clear that all three of these recollections about David’s past and personality can’t be true. In doing so, the author casts all three as unreliable narrators whose image of David can’t be fully trusted. One of them may be right; fragments from each may be right; but all three together cannot be a true representation of the unfortunate but mysterious David. “Tiller skillfully parries David’s shifting character into uncertainty about the narrative itself,” observed a Publishers Weekly contributor. Independent (London) reviewer Boyd Tonkin remarked, “Remembered in drastically different ways, David lurks offstage as the absent center; the focus of fantasy, and apologia, as much as reminiscence.”
In Tiller’s “deep character study, encapsulations of Jon, Arvid, and Silje are engrossing in their perceptions and ordinariness,” observed Annie Bostrom, writing in Booklist. A Kirkus Reviews contributor called Encircling a “poised and effective Rashomon-style exploration of multiple psyches.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, February 1, 2017, Annie Bostrom, review of Encircling, p. 19.
Independent (London, England), June 29, 2005, Boyd Tonkin, “Encircling by Carl Frode Tiller, Book Review: Hard-Hitting Realism from the Anti-Knausgaard.”
Kirkus Reviews, December 1, 2016, review of Encircling.
New Yorker, June 26, 2017, Elisa Gonzalez, “Briefly Noted,” review of Encircling, p. 64.
Publishers Weekly, December 19, 2016, review of Encircling, p. 92.
USA Today, February 27, 2017, Charles Finch, “Dive into videos, memories, bias and the Kremlin,” review of Encircling, p. 06D.
ONLINE
Graywolf Press Website, http://www.graywolfpress.org/ (October 22, 2017), biography of Carl Frode Tiller.
Oslo Literary Agency Website, http://www.osloliteraryagency.no/ (October 22, 2017).
CARL FRODE TILLER
CARL FRODE TILLER
Carl Frode Tiller
Doubtlessly one of his generation’s most important novelists, Carl Frode Tiller (b 1970) is admired for his instantly recognizable, furious prose and his ability to create vivid, complex characters whose fates often seem sealed by their inability to break out of their own destructive behavioural patterns that mark their relationships with other people. Though they might come across as dark and desperate, Tiller succeeds in portraying these tragic characters in a way that arouses the deepest sympathy in the reader.
Few have won as many literary prizes for their first three books as Tiller, starting with the sensational debut THE SLOPE in 2001. In 2005 he was named one of the 10 best Norwegian writers under 35. In 2006, THE SLOPE was named among the 25 most important Norwegian novels from the last 25 years in a prestigious contest in the daily Dagbladet.
In addition to his three novels, Tiller has written three plays and a number of short stories and short prose for various magazines and newspapers. He has a master’s degree in history, and plays in the rock band Kong Ler. He lives in Trondheim. (From Aschehoug Agency website)
Carl Frode Tiller
Nominated to the Nordic Council Literature Prize 2010 (Encirclement II)
Winner of the European Prize for Literature 2009
Winner of the Hunger Prize 2008
Nominated to the Nordic Council Literature Prize 2008 (ENCIRCLEMENT)
Winner of the Norwegian Book Award Brage Prize 2007 (ENCIRCLEMENT)
Winner of the Critics’ Prize 2007 (ENCIRCLEMENT)
Winner of the Tarjei Vesaas First Book Award 2001 (THE SLOPE)
Winner of the P2 Listeners’ Best Novel Prize 2001 (THE SLOPE)
Doubtless one of his generation’s most important novelists, Carl Frode Tiller (b 1970) is admired for his instantly recognizable, furious prose and his ability to create vivid, complex characters whose fates often seem sealed by their inability to break out of their own destructive behavioural patterns that mark their relationships with other people. Though they might come across as dark and desperate, Tiller succeeds in portraying these tragic characters in a way that arouses the deepest sympathy in the reader.
In 2005 he was named one of the 10 best Norwegian writers under 35. In 2006, THE SLOPE was named among the 25 most important Norwegian novels from the last 25 years in a prestigious contest in the daily Dagbladet.
In addition to his novels, Tiller has written several plays, short stories and short prose for various magazines and newspapers.
Briefly Noted
Elisa Gonzalez
The New Yorker. 93.18 (June 26, 2017): p64.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 Conde Nast Publications, Inc.. All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Conde Nast Publications, Inc.
http://www.newyorker.com/
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Full Text:
[...]
Encircling, by Carl Frode Tiller, translated from the Norwegian by Barbara J. Haveland (Graywolf). When David, a thirtysomething man living in a coastal city in Norway, develops amnesia, people from his past are asked to write letters describing who he is, or was. His estranged stepfather, who is dying, responds, as do two friends from David's adolescence who once competed for his affection. Their missives-cruel, tender, perturbing-are sketches of life in the provincial town where Tiller grew up. What makes this novel, the first of a trilogy, extraordinary is the suspense: like the best mystery novels, it transforms the reader into an obsessive gumshoe-though, in this volume, at least, David's identity is a question with no definitive answer.
Dive into videos, memories, bias and the Kremlin
Charles Finch
USA Today. (Feb. 27, 2017): Lifestyle: p06D.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/
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Full Text:
Charles Finch rounds up four excellent new mysteries, from Iowa to Norway, from puritanical cops and disenchanted spies to video-store clerks and weary rockers, from dark to strange to unputdownable.
[...]
Encircling
By Carl Frode Tiller
Graywolf Press, 336 pp.
Traditional genre novels are so often about the moments when love, no matter how profound, isn't enough to keep us safe. This Norwegian novel (***1/2), the first in a trilogy that has drawn wide acclaim in Europe, is a beautiful meditation on the subtler ways we fail each other, our quieter forms of grief. It begins with a failing rocker, Jon, bolting from the band that looks like his last chance, and then composing a letter to the companion of his adolescent years, David. Why is he narrating their history? It turns out David cannot remember his life -- in the book's next two sections, his stepfather and a second friend, Silje, write similar accounts. Characters appear in radically different light in each, anecdotes taking on new meaning through new tellings. And the mystery of David's own path lingers. It's thrilling to know two more books will arrive to tell its story.
Encircling
Annie Bostrom
Booklist.
113.11 (Feb. 1, 2017): p19.
COPYRIGHT 2017 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
Full Text:
Encircling.
By Carl Frode Tiller. Tr. by Barbara J. Haveland.
Feb. 2017. 336p. Graywolf, paper, $16 (9781555977627).
In his thirties, David has suffered the complete loss of his memory and has taken out a newspaper ad beseeching those
who know him to write and tell him about his life. Norwegian writer Tiller's perhaps implausible premise is easily
enough suspended, while the three letter writers in the first book in a trilogy (which has already won awards in
Norway) emerge as the story's main characters. Jon, David's best friend from their teens, is emotional, interpersonally
challenged, and at a creative crossroads. David's stepfather, Arvid, is suffering through cancer and finds a new purpose
in writing to David. Silje, David's ex, has found success as a wife, mother, and career woman but appears unsatisfied.
Psychological puzzles for readers abound. The letter writers--each appearing in the others' sections--and the David they
depict can't possibly all be truthful in their every aspect. What, then, are the falsehoods? In this deep character study,
encapsulations of Jon, Arvid, and Silje are engrossing in their perceptions and ordinariness, while wonder about David
gives the novel its subtle, baseline thread.--Annie Bostrom
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
Bostrom, Annie. "Encircling." Booklist, 1 Feb. 2017, p. 19. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA481244752&it=r&asid=50a7ffbd32976a8c196c00ab4738a5e9.
Accessed 1 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A481244752
10/1/2017 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1506885190225 2/3
Encircling
Publishers Weekly.
263.52 (Dec. 19, 2016): p92.
COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Encircling
Carl Frode Tiller, trans. from the Norwegian by Barbara J. Haveland. Graywolf, $16 trade paper (336p) ISBN 978-1-
55597-762-7
In this first volume of the ambitious Encircling Trilogy (winner of the European Prize for Literature), David's memory
has vanished and three voices from his youth recall his life in a series of letters. Jon writes of growing up in the
sheltered town of Namsos, Norway, in the 1980s and how his sexual explorations with David proved that the bohemian
"image of ourselves which we had formed was real." The brooding vicar Arvid, on the other hand, saw in David, his
stepson, a kindred spirit. "Like me," he writes, "you had a great thirst for knowledge." David's friend Silje's memory is
different still--she writes wistfully of his "fanaticism and refusal to compromise." The image of David that emerges is
infused with stunning dimension, a stark contrast with the everyday domestic turmoil and illness the aging narrators
cope with between letters. Silje bemoans the loss of "the rawness, the intensity, and the passion I had," and Jon ruefully
casts himself as a "young, once plump, man with girlish features and a receding hairline." As the novel progresses,
Tiller skillfully parries David's shifting character into uncertainty about the narrative itself. (Feb.)
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
"Encircling." Publishers Weekly, 19 Dec. 2016, p. 92. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA475324258&it=r&asid=5ff92f8f8961712d4956632d32b5a049.
Accessed 1 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A475324258
10/1/2017 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1506885190225 3/3
Tiller, Carl Frode: ENCIRCLING
Kirkus Reviews.
(Dec. 1, 2016):
COPYRIGHT 2016 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Tiller, Carl Frode ENCIRCLING Graywolf (Adult Fiction) $16.00 2, 21 ISBN: 978-1-55597-762-7
One man's amnesia prompts divergent and sometimes-conflicting remembrances from those close to him.The central
figure in this plainspoken but psychologically penetrating novel (the first in a trilogy) is David, who has lost his
memory in an accident and places a notice in the paper requesting letters detailing his past. Three step up: Arvid,
David's stepfather and dying vicar in their small Norwegian town, and a pair of childhood friends, Jon and Silje. Tiller's
strategy is to establish a kind of public persona for each of them--Arvid cold and aloof, Jon antisocial and self-pitying,
Silje free-spirited--and then muddy and blur that simplistic portraiture. Jon, for instance, is indeed an impossibly needy
and sour musician--as the novel opens he's called out on this by other members of his band, which he promptly quits--
but his stories of his past and present reveal a struggle with family bullying, his lust for David, and an awareness of his
inability to check his anger. And his story casts doubts on Arvid's and Silje's versions, just as theirs do his. (Did Jon
truly have a fling with David, or was it just wishful thinking?) As with a Norwegian contemporary, Karl Ove
Knausgaard, Tiller believes the path to interior insight comes via a straight march through unadorned detail: Arvid's
agony over his lost faith and David's adolescent dark obsessions resonate with his painful stint in a hospital for cancer
treatment, and Silje's recollections of David's malicious pranks (like leaving a ladies' scarf on the scene of a man's car
accident to imply an affair) echo her crumbling marriage. There are still unresolved questions for the next two books to
deal with, the identity of David's biological father first among them, but this by itself is a wholly satisfying story about
how unreliable narrators tell tales not just about events, but about our core emotions. A poised and effective
Rashomon-style exploration of multiple psyches.
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
"Tiller, Carl Frode: ENCIRCLING." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Dec. 2016. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA471901932&it=r&asid=59eb1ef8c362935f0859d89d6d9bb15b.
Accessed 1 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A471901932
Encircling by Carl Frode Tiller, book review: Hard-hitting realism from the anti-Knausgaard
Gains most traction from passages of close-focus domesticity
Boyd Tonkin @indyvoices Monday 29 June 2015 01:15 BST
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The Independent Culture
encircling.jpg
Namsos, a coastal town in central Norway, boasts a golden elk on its coat of arms and a Sawmill Museum. Since he published this first volume in 2007, this archetypal backwater has had another claim to fame. It supplies a setting, often mocked but trickily adhesive, for a trilogy of bestselling, award-winning novels by writer and rock musician Carl Frode Tiller. As one of his narrators says in this first episode, “Maybe it is harder to break free than I always thought”.
The unavoidable shadow of Karl-Ove Knausgaard will now fall over any multi-volume saga of modern Norwegian life. Indeed, as Encircling kicks off with Jon, the morose bass player in a so-so band, walking out on his mates after a sulk in a dead-end little port, readers may sense the Karl-Ove weather of introspective angst closing in again. Although the two authors’ moods and themes can coincide, this opening scene in some ways lays a false trail.
Tiller creates a singular set-up. David Hugsar, who never appears in this volume, has lost his memory. At his psychologist’s behest, friends and family from Namsos send him letters about the life they shared. Alternating with the letters, first-person recollections tell these characters’ own stories. You could even dub Tiller the anti-Knausgaard. In place of the latter’s heroic solipsism, his chorus of voices yields a prismatic, multi-faceted view of personal identity. Much of the reality of any life rests in the minds and memories of one’s nearest and dearest. The vicar Arvid, David’s devoted but baffled stepfather, comes to acknowledge “how much influence other people actually have on who I am”.
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We hear, in three successive narratives, from the talented but “fragile” Jon then from the cancer-stricken Arvid, and finally from a former girlfriend: unhappily married Silje. Remembered in drastically different ways, David lurks offstage as the absent centre; the focus of fantasy, and apologia, as much as reminiscence.
This carefully scored polyphony allows Tiller to shift between registers, from the dying Arvid’s touching, but still deluded, meditations on love and mortality to Silje’s Strindberg-style marital rows – played out at slightly punishing length. If Encircling delivers vocal virtuosity – carried into English with equal dexterity by Barbara Haveland – it gains most traction from passages of close-focus domesticity. Jon may sneer at the films of Mike Leigh and Ken Loach, but visitors to Tiller’s Namsos may feel that their spirits hover not too far away.
Order for £8.54 (free p&p) from the Independent Bookshop: 08430 600 030