“Den dag Nils Vik døde”

The  novel opens with: “Quarter past five opened Nils Vik his eyes, and the last day of his life began”. (my trans.) From the first sentence until the last one p. 159, you are expected to witness a short journey; on the contrary, you are withdrawn to a full scale life of a man who transport people from one side of Fjord to the other with his boat. Through a series of events, accompanied all the time with Nils and his comments on all the passengers who boarded his ship, we were introduced to lively community that lived around the Fjord: friends, men, women, lovers, suiciders, drinkers, priests, workers, his beloved Marta who m he married later, his two daughters, his brother, and many numerous people who used to board Nils’ ship- whether to work, to hospital, to church, to marriage ceremonies, to cemetery …..all characters were seen through the warm eyes of a detached Nils who rarely speaks or smiles, but worked out his duties silently, with the utmost spirit of dedication and love. From Vietnam war to the daily life of the people, even when he spoke to his dead dog Luna when human conversation was absent, events were interwoven in a way that prevents you to close the book before reading it fully, until the last breath of Nils was out, when united in death with his life beloved Marta. The line between death and life was blurred; and the small details of the whole community around Fjord depicted all the variations and ramifications of the individuals we have known through the microscopic eyes of  Nils. 

Nils lived his life fully; therefore he embraced his death fully; and he died following Nietzsche’s advice: die in the appropriate time. The last few pages were a collective witnesses from the dead to the newly arrived Nils.