A reader’s life often travels along confusing paths. In Thomas Bernhard’s Woodcutters, which was the very first novel I read in German, the characters discuss Henrik Ibsen’s play “The Wild Duck”. Of course, I had to re-read “The Wild Duck” in order better to understand Bernhard’s novel. After doing that, I started wondering if other authors had been inspired by the play in their own work. This is how I came across the Norwegian writer Dag Solstad and his novel Shyness and Dignity.
It is an excellent novel. The main character is a 53-year-old high school teacher of Norwegian literature named Elias Rukla. At the beginning of the novel, he tries to share with his students his original new reading of Ibsen’s “The Wild Duck.” The students are completely indifferent to his efforts, and Rukla ends up having a massive freak out right in front of the students. As he walks home after this debacle, the teacher thinks about the events in his life that led him to this point.
Shyness and Dignity is a short novel. It’s one of those breathless, very European narratives that offer a glimpse into the mind of an everyday neurotic. If you’re into this kind of writing and like to follow all of the little psychological clues that the author drops throughout the novel, then the seemingly mundane ending of the book will strike you as absolutely explosive. If, however, you do not believe that the daily life of everyday people is the most fascinating thing imaginable, then you will find the novel boring. The book starts slow as the readers get to experience the tedium of a failed class in Norwegian literature that Elias Rukla is teaching, but after that the novel really picks up the pace and becomes downright addictive.
I loved Shyness and Dignity. It is hard to say based on only one novel, but it is possible that I have found a new favorite writer.
Clarissa's Blog 
I’m currently looking for the next book I want to read and Dag Solstad’s sounds like the perfect book for me.
Btw, do you know Tim Parks? He’s one of my favourite writers. For example “Cleaver” or “Hotel Milano” are excellent books about neurotic men, very well observed and well written, also darkly funny. Tim Parks is British, but has lived in Italy for many years and is an excellent observer of Italian culture. I’ve read nearly all of his books and luckily there are many. 🙂
I love Bernhard too and I think it is amazing that you read his novels in German. Would you be interested in recommendations for contemporary or also classic German literature? If yes what kind of books are you looking for?
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I was thinking about you when I wrote this post because I definitely think that you will enjoy this novel. 😀
Absolutely, I want recommendations of contemporary German literature. If I hadn’t gone into Hispanic studies, I would have definitely gone into German, although it’s just as well that I didn’t because there are no jobs in the field. I love German literature and culture much more than, for example, the French or the Portuguese. No shade on French literature, of course. This is simply an issue of affinity.
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Oh I already have a recommendation: “Ich und Kaminsky” by Daniel Kehlmann. Short, very funny, I think easy to read. With a hilariously not-self-aware, borderline narcissistic main character. There are maybe some interesting parallels with “Transcription” by Ben Lerner and the novel is probably also influenced by Bernhard.
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