A Shining by Jon Fosse

Saturday, June 8, 2024--San Antonio

A Shining by Jon Fosse is a novella--a VERY short novel.  It is quite different, too.  It is one long paragraph.  All the words are thoughts within the mind of a man--quick thoughts circling around in his head with some repetition and slow forward progress.  The man seems to be depressed and to have lived alone for some time.  He has driven into the country taking planned turns to purposely get lost--right at the first intersection, left at the second intersection, and so on until he has come to a dead end on a grass-track road going up in altitude with no more intersections.  Ahead is a forest of pine trees with a walking trail into the woods.  The car is stuck--the ruts lower than the grass mound between them which has stopped the car's movement rather than him putting on the brakes.   All of this seems to be steps in a depressed man's attempt to let his life come to an end.  It is snowing and cold.  He can't go further in the car, so he walks into the woods following the trail.  He has only his regular clothes and shoes, so it is very cold.  Soon it is getting dark so that he is unsure if he is still on the trail.  He is changing directions as he did when driving.  Therefore, he comes to the realization that he is lost in the dark woods and cannot get back to his car.  There is a round smooth stone that looks like a good place to sit down since limbs above it have collected the falling snow and left the stone uncovered and since he is tired and just wants to rest.  All of this may be symbolic for something happening totally elsewhere but manifesting it in his mind this way, but it soon becomes evident that the man is going through a process of dying.  There is a shining light.  His parents appear.  A man in a black suit and tie appear.  Then the light, his parents, and the shining light are all there together.  No one is wearing shoes, not even him, yet he remembers he had them on when he left the car and cannot remember ever taking them off.  So much has not been making sense to him.  Eventually, he joins hands with all the others, and more things occur that don't make sense.  Even breathing changes to not really involving breathing air.  And then the thoughts stop, too, and the reader is at the end of the one paragraph novel!  It's different.  It's thought-provoking.  Even though it is short, I wanted to stop reading out of lack of interest toward the beginning.  But I persisted and started reading faster and faster since I realized it was just thoughts spinning in the man's head.  And before I knew it my reading was progressing rapidly toward the end of the book.  I gave it 4 stars out of 5.