Life is what happens in the moments between birth and death, and there’s much mystery found in this fleeting gap in Jon Fosse’s Morning and Evening (2000, tr: Damion Searls, 2015). Here life and death are not just the chronological start and end points for our time on Earth, but literally the only landmarks presented.
Fosse begins with the birth of Johannes, somewhere in remote Norway. His father, Olai, is excited as, later in life, he’s to be blessed with a son after all. His wife, Magda, is in labour, and the old midwife has been rowed to the island to assist. It’s delivered from Olai’s consciousness, in trademark Fosse style, repetitive, spare thoughts simply presented, and occasional walls of unbroken text. His thoughts float around, circle back, and drive the narrative on.
But no sooner is Johannes born, we are then taken to the end of his life as he experiences an unusual final day. As he goes for a walk, and his mind wanders, we learn how he became a fisherman like his father, although they never really got on; raised seven children of his own, who in turn made him a grandparent. It’s certainly an untraditional way to present a life, as there’s only ever the vaguest of details, and no definitive timeline. However, we learn enough of Johannes to know he has no complaints and feels fulfilled.
It’s over the course of his day that he meets local characters and remembers others long gone. Johannes has a feverish obsession with small details, as if he’s holding on to them while all else is slipping away, and his thoughts hum with them. It’s absolutely haunting and hypnotic, dreamlike in its events which fade in and fade out, bringing a sense of the mythic to an empty landscape that seems to exist outside time.
While I enjoyed Fosse’s A Shining (2023), which has similarities with this book, Morning and Evening is a more rewarding read. Here the author dares go beyond death and imagine a warm and loving, comfortable oblivion, which, if you believe in an afterlife, sounds reassuring. But ultimately it’s a uniquely presented celebration of one small life that may not matter in the grand scale but means everything to those in its moment.
