Norwegian writer Jo Nesbe became famous for his series of crime novels about Harry Hall. You've probably heard about "The Snowman" - in the film adaptation of the book, the famous detective was played by Michael Fassbinder. But, like many honored masters of his genre, Nesbe tries to go beyond its limits. The novel "Kingdom" is already the second attempt. BookJack tells whether the author of detective stories managed to cope with an ambitious task.
Jo Nesbø is a bestselling Norwegian author and musician. He was born in Oslo and grew up in Molde. Nesbø graduated from the Norwegian School of Economics with a degree in economics. Nesbø is primarily famous for his crime novels about Detective Harry Hole, but he is also the main vocals and songwriter for the Norwegian rock band Di Derre. In 2007 Nesbø also released his first children's book, Doktor Proktors Prompepulver.
In the life of every great (or even great) master of genre literature, there comes that awkward moment when he feels that he is capable of more. Not everyone succeeds in passing this stage with dignity: so, for example, J.K. Rowling with her "Random Vacancy", in general, passed the test, but Alexandra Marinina, Boris Akunin or Tana French rather failed it. To say about "Kingdom" - the second, after the failed "Macbeth" entry of the Norwegian detective Jo Nesbe into the territory of "serious" literature - something definite is somewhat more difficult. On the one hand, it's a robust northern noir, populous, atmospheric and reasonably psychological. On the other hand, the best (without exaggeration, outstanding) pages of The Kingdom still look like they moved here straight from the next thriller about Harry Hall, while the others, more detailed and unhurried, are lost and fade against their background.
To a connoisseur of Nesbe's work, the protagonist of the novel, thirty-six-year-old Roy Opgard, will remind Ulav, the kind-hearted killer from the Blood in the Snow trilogy: deceptive dullness in a similar proportion is mixed with ingenuity and even resourcefulness, and nobility - with a constant willingness to give someone a jaw. And even the trauma (what a hero Nesbe is without trauma) for Ulava and Roy, in fact, is common, rooted in childhood. Laconic and reserved, the hero of The Kingdom lives on a farm he inherited from his parents not far from the godforsaken village of Us in northern Norway. He runs a local gas station, loves poking around in cars more than anything else, does not make friends with any of his neighbors, and at his leisure he reads old American novels and listens to jazz. And none of the fellow villagers who have known him since childhood even suspect that Roy has an impressive and surprisingly diverse collection of skeletons in his closet.
For the time being, quiet and not attracting attention, these skeletons begin to fall out with a crash when, after a fifteen-year absence, Roy's younger brother Carl returns to Us - an irresistible, talented and successful everyone's favorite. From Canada, where he managed to make good money, Karl brought an exotic, beautiful wife, and most importantly, a project that should save the decayed village and turn it into a center for regional tourism. Karl raves about the idea of building a dizzyingly modern spa hotel in the local mountains, like an alien ship landing in the middle of the rocks. There is little to do - in order for an ambitious dream to come true, all the inhabitants of Usa, without exception, will have to invest in this enterprise.
The Kingdom is built as a complex collage of flashbacks explaining the dark spots in the past of the Opgard brothers, and episodes dating back to the one and a half years that separate Karl's return to his homeland from the dramatic denouement of the entire novel. Large and small mutual betrayal, omissions, abuse, common secrets and at the same time ardent brotherly love and unconditional support - all together this forms an explosive mixture, quite capable of blowing up the village of Us along with the surrounding area. Karl becomes more and more entangled in debts, unfulfilled promises and layered lies, and Roy at some point realizes that he is deeply in love with his brother's wife, and this feeling is mutual. Trying to correct or at least disguise the previous mistakes, the brothers over and over again make new ones - more and more destructive, and it is clear that with such a history, none of them can count on a happy outcome.
You cannot call the new novel by Jo Nesbe a thriller, or even more so a detective story. The only riddle present in the novel is resolved long before its end, and even it, in general, does not promise the reader any special surprises: the most obvious assumption will turn out to be concurrently the most correct.
First of all, "Kingdom" is a book about the family, about the tragic indissolubility of blood ties, about childhood trauma and the accompanying sense of guilt - irrational, but no less destructive from this. Roy blames himself for the misfortune that happened to his little brother, and does not notice how this circumstance turns first into a victim of manipulation, and then into a criminal himself. Karl is so crippled by his past that he is practically unable to distinguish between good and evil - and easily forgives himself for this, turning the experience into a universal justification for any - even the most terrible and dirty - of his offense.
The second semantic layer of the novel is a lively and convincing sketch of the life and customs of the Norwegian countryside, and at the same time a portrait gallery of its inhabitants. The secondary and tertiary characters in The Kingdom are written out so vividly and in relief that it is impossible to speak of them only as extras, dispassionately observing the tragedy of the main characters. The ugly hairdresser Greta, who has been in love with Karl since her youth and is ready to destroy everything in order to get him; rural beauty queen Marie; Carl's vindictive ex-girlfriend; repentant domestic rapist Anton Mu; the shrewd Lensman (Norwegian analogue of the sheriff) Olsen, who sees the Opgard brothers through and through, but is unable to prove anything; seventeen-year-old fool Yulia in love with Roy, an employee of his gas station - these and a dozen other inhabitants of Usa (each with their own voice and their own story) make the world of the novel come to life, warm and convincing.
In a word, the "Kingdom" really has many advantages - as already mentioned, it is quite respectable reading, organically fits into the tradition of a Scandinavian family romance, intelligent, observant and very charming in its own way. However, it must be admitted that, for all its strengths, the new book by Jo Nesbe becomes truly exciting only at those moments when it becomes similar to the old ones, when the action is accelerated and compressed to the limit, and the reader suddenly forgets to breathe from tension. And at this point it is very difficult to resist the question: why is it decent to do what many can, when there are things that you can do with a large margin better than anyone else?
This article was sponosred by JOHN NYEMCSIK
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