Scenes From a Childhood by Jon Fosse

In this programme we introduce Scenes from a Childhood, by Norwegian author, Jon Fosse, published in 2018.  Jon Fosse is an author, translator and, especially, a playwright. In 2023, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his innovative plays and prose which give voice to the unsayable – that was the Nobel Prize Committee’s reason for the award.

The book draws together five of Fosse’s most powerful short pieces, spanning his entire career, and written in his characteristic spare and poetic prose.  Our Reading Circle read the first of the five pieces, Scenes From a Childhood.

In an interview in 2017 Jon Fosse commented:  “In writing ‘Scenes from a Childhood’, my goal was to write about my own childhood, what actually happened. That turned out to be impossible for me. What I wrote was similar to my own experience in some ways, but not a single one of these pieces ended up being entirely accurate. I cannot help writing fiction.”

The resulting 52-page work consists of 43 individual pieces of varying lengths, mapping episodes from the narrator’s childhood. They are extraordinary texts, self-contained episodes, flashbacks and curious vignettes.

Here are the books recommended by Reading Circle members this month.

• Youth (2002): the second book in J.M.Coetzee’s trilogy of fictionalized memoirs, in which the author escapes from South Africa to London.
• Pygmalion (1913) by George Bernard Shaw. Named after the Greek mythological figure, its themes are social class, identity and the power of language.
• Dear Zealots: Letters from a Divided Land (2017) by Amos Oz. A collection of three powerful and timely essays on the rise of zealotry in Israel and around the world.
• Mad Honey (2022) by Jodie Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan, a riveting coming-of-age tale that explores gender identity, friendship and self-acceptance.
• A Gentleman in Moscow (2016) by Amer Towles, the story of a Russian aristocrat living under house arrest in a luxury hotel for more than thirty years. Fantastical romance, politics, espionage, parenthood and poetry.
• One Second After by William R. Forstchen (2009), an apocalyptic thriller in which a deadly electromagnetic pulse instantly disables almost every electrical device in the U.S and elsewhere in the world.
• Paths of Glory by Jeffrey Archer (2009), is based on the story of George Mallory, who died attempting to climb Everest in the 1920’s

Members also recommended two films about childhood:

• Boyhood (2014) directed by Richard Linklater. Incidents that occur across a period of twelve years mould MJ’s life.
• The 400 Blows (Les Quatre Cents Coups), directed by Francois Truffaut. This is  a coming-of-age drama about Antoine, a misunderstood adolescent who leaves home and gets involved in petty crime in Paris, discovering the city as never before. It’s one of the defining films of the French New Wave.

Music played:
• Morning Mood from Act 4 of Peer Gynt by Eduard Greig.
• The Death of Ase from Act 3 of Peer Gynt by Eduard Greig
• Anitra’s Dance from Act 4 of Peer Gynt by Eduard Greig