When on a powerful one, in this case Norwegian literary scene, a writer like Nina Lika appeared, too fast the reader he could place her in the second row, behind Jun Fosse, Karl-Uwe Knausgaard, Per Peteschun, Jens Bjernebue or Meret Linström (to mention only the more sonorous names), but such a choice of place would not be entirely justified. In fact, it would not be justified at all. A too fast reader could be fooled first of all by the choice of topics, transparency of expression, pronounced humor. To a certain extent - perhaps a Serbian reader would think - Nina Like could be compared to Momo Kapor at a time when the Serbian literary scene, in the Yugoslav corpus, was ruled by Mirko Kovač, Borislav Pekić, Danilo Kiš, Dragoslav Mihailović, Aleksandar Tišma: an excellent writer (until he discovered Serbia), a very important stone in that unsurpassed body of Serbian (Yugoslav) literature, but who still cannot stand alongside them. Such a comparison, despite certain similarities, is still unsustainable. Namely, Nina Lika notices cracks in the edifice of the world where others do not see them, or, if they see them, they leave those cracks alone: it is a little cracked, but it is not terrible, the building will not collapse because of it. And they're probably right, except, if you ask Nina Lika, they're not.
......
The main character of the novel, Knut A. Petešen, is a writer, he is closer to old age than to middle age, he is the embodiment of failure and, what is worse, embittered impotence. He lives alone, he has no money - so from time to time he is forced to do something other than constantly whining about himself and hating the whole world that does not sum up his genius - he sporadically gets drunk with his homosexual neighbor who is unhappily in love with a married man, he still loves his ex-wife, and he does not manage to establish any contact with his son because, basically, he is too self-obsessed to have room for anyone else. Admittedly, he is still followed by the glimmers of fame from the time when he wrote a good and widely read novel, women have always liked him and have always approached him, and he himself is self-deprecating enough to not really belong in the biggest brawls. All in all, a rather ruined life, about which there would be nothing to say if Knut had not found himself in the middle of an unpleasant scandal. Namely, since his younger colleague attacked his male person head-on (she sat on his lap, for example), on which occasion he properly groped her (she did not protest), and she felt his erection (she did not protest even then, on the contrary), she nevertheless withdrew, which he (how else) sportily accepted. The problem, however, is that she included that episode in her new book, the only thing is that she assigned Knut, by name and surname, the role of an old lustful and sexual predator, while she described herself as a mixture of Red Riding Hood and Snow White and the seven dwarfs. To make matters more complicated and unpleasant, Knut has been invited to a literary festival in Lillehammer, where he is supposed to participate in the same literary evening as her. It is understood that the first impulse was to refuse, but the fee and the fact that there is no change were more convincing arguments. A jumbo will be created, which Nina Like manages with amazing skill.
Knut, therefore, is a rather damaged man prone to self-deception and milder forms of hypochondria, but also too intelligent for self-deception to be successful. He is on the border of alcoholism, but he has not yet crossed the border. In fact, he has already surrendered, but he still offers a certain resistance to himself, at least to the extent that he does not stop observing and, relatively lucidly, interprets the world. However, the fact that it is not clear what they measure up to and why he may suffer from problematic female behavior, in the name of political correctness, does not give him peace. That problem, again, is mixed with a literary motif that affects him personally: is it possible to declare everything in literature to be fiction? Is it enough to state at the beginning of the novel that everything that happens in the book is fictional, and that any resemblance to real events and real people is accidental? If it is mentioned in the novel law a name, and then, when the named revolts, declares it all fiction - is that enough to suspend reality?
In fact, Nina Like does not tolerate commonplaces, so she breaks them down patiently and with a lot of humor, showing no pity for the characters who, in their weakness, twist like worms. In the novel Advanced ("Vreme", no. 1599) did not lift a finger for her heroine, so that she had to figure out what the problem was and, just as alone, wriggle out of the problem. But above all, the Norwegian writer has an impressive command of the language (with an equally impressive translation by Radoš Kosović). There are no metaphysical ramblings, unfinished questions, idleness in her sentences. Everything is aimed at finding a reason even in broken characters like Knut, with the fact that it is not a philosophical, but a literary search through well-placed characters who, if they can't do otherwise, collide very painfully with hard walls.
But what, after all, happened to Cnut? The outcome is probably less important than Knuth's confrontations with weaknesses (fear of public speaking) and cowardice (although he understands everything, especially nonsense, it never occurs to him to rebel), with illusions and self-delusions, with passivity, petty betrayals (of himself and others) and awareness of his own shortcomings. Knut goes through several impressive episodes - a conversation with two high school girls who want to write about his novel and their Norwegian language teacher - it is a completely brilliant literary game. When he gets out of self-pity and gets really angry, he can say more than he believed. So that, finally, he would understand that reality as such is not given - neither in life nor in literature - but that he has to fight for it, and maybe even create it.
