By Johan Harstad
The years us 1999. The final year before the future begins. Mattias is a gardener and was born on the night that man landed on the moon in 1969. His greatest wish is not to get in…
The years us 1999. The final year before the future begins. Mattias is a gardener and was born on the night that man landed on the moon in 1969. His greatest wish is not to get in anyone's way, to be anonymous, a functional hole in the universe. He has been with his girl friend for eight years, he has a job he loves and a box of threadbare books about space. He also has a friend who has got a job as a musician on the Faroe Islands in the summer and has said yes, he will go along as the soundman – someone has to sort out the sound. According to plan he will be back home in a week. But it doesn't take much to rock the boat. One drop too many in the ocean, and a storm is let loose. It will be a long time before Mattias returns home. A long time. First he will almost disappear.
Buzz Aldrin - Reader\'s Report(pdf, 18,98 kB)
Buzz Aldrin - sample translation(pdf, 123,49 kB)
Foregin Sales:
Belgium, KOPERGIETERY
Italy, Iperborea
Poland, Smak Slowa
Romania, Casa Cărții de Știință
Quotes from Finnish reviews:
"Buzz Aldrin was one of the best translated novels in 2007, if not the best. What with all the praise, Harstad's previous short story collection has now been published. The stories in Ambulanssi (Ambulance) are melancholy plunges into the seemingly monotone lives of ordninary people whose inner life is anything but monotone. Harstad has an admirable gift of digging deep into the essence of man and conveying, in an understanding and empathetic way, the most intimate of feelings onto the pages of his books"
Kaleva, 15.2.2008
“Everyman takes over - Johan Harstad’s debut novel Buzz Aldrin belongs to the elite among Scandinavian bestsellers...As a storyteller Harstad is fluent and funny, he is a kindred spirit with Don DeLillo and John Irving, and his humour bears a likeness to that of Erlend Loe.”
Dagsstidningen /Keskisuomalainen 19.4.2007 circulation 74 84
Quotes from Italian reviews:
"The book has a rare intensity, somewhat reminiscent of One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest or even (with a slight exaggeration) of Thomas Mann’s Magic Mountain."
Daniele Abbiati, il Giornale
”It would be no exaggeration to claim that the novel Che ne è stato di te, Buzz Aldrin? ... written by the young author Johan Harstad is a strong candidate for the title Book of the year. After receiving wide attention at the Frankfurt Book Fair, it has been translated into seven languages and has become a bestseller in Scandinavia. (...) A novel packed with surprises: Already in the the two opening lines, the reader is whisked away by the author’s poetic, yet direct style.”
Gian Paolo Serino, D, la Repubblica
"To be number two and still live life as an adventure (…) the title is intended as a hommage to Buzz Aldrin, who was the second man on the moon and unknown to most of us (…)
From the very first sentence, the narrator displays a wonderful sense of irony: “The person you love consists of 78 percent water, and it hasn’t rained in a fortnight …”
Alessandro Beretta, Il Corriere della Sera - Milano
"A bildungsroman, a celebration of ”not standing out” (…) One is guided into an enchanted and solitary Nordic landscape (…) Travelling on a Ship of Fools in search of a dream."
f.f, La Repubblica - Milano
Quotes from Danish reviews:
"Superficially a cliché-ridden, predictable and over-dimensioned Norwegian novel about a drowsy young man’s awakening – but executed in language that presages a major canon of work ... The fact is that Johan Harstad has a wholly unique voice, simultaneously both concrete and soaring ... The ability to write in such a fashion, to present a situation and compose time and space about it with such a linguistic cadence cannot be learned. It is something one is born with. Harstad’s compatriot, Knut Hamsun, who was capable of the same, must be joyous in his heaven, or wherever else he might be."
Jakob Levinsen, Jyllands-Posten
"... the story is told with such sweetness and charm ... that Johan Harstad’s little masterpiece must simply be read – the sooner the better."
Jonas Hindsholm Bentzen, Børsen
"Norway already possesses a Kjærstad, a Fløgstad and a Solstad. Now there’s also a Harstad. Following preliminary skirmishes with a couple of short-story collections, young Johan Harstad has made his debut as a novelist with a giant 630-page work. The novel, “Buzz Aldrin, what happened to you in all the confusion?”, is a broadly constructed tale of breakdown and rehabilitation, of a person who prefers to live in the shadow of others and who identifies with Buzz Aldrin, the second man on the moon. That the novel has achieved such dimensions is primarily owing to the author’s extraordinary inventiveness both with and within the language. There is indeed a structure to the novel but the author takes many liberties under way, dwelling on events and unravelling life histories. The book teems with isolated episodes and singular people. There is something unrestrained, almost unruly about the narrative which is reminiscent of a Henrik Bjelke. (-) Johan Harstad writes with profound credibility about the main character’s breakdown and slow rehabilitation in the Faroe Islands, but struggles to convince the reader of the novel’s somewhat postulated conclusion. The mature loving happiness seems forced and nowhere near as convincing as the rest of this extremely impressive first novel."
Kristeligt Dagblad
"A beautifully told 1st-person narration of tremendous warmth and an intimate portrait of Faroe Island society ... very reminiscent of the younger Lars Saabye Christensen and Ingvar Ambjørnsen ... An overwhelming, splendid debut novel about a young man’s attempt to find his place in the world."
Per Månson, DBC
May 15, 2011 Kirkus review:
Quotes from Finnish reviews:
"Buzz Aldrin was one of the best translated novels in 2007, if not the best. What with all the praise, Harstad's previous short story collection has now been published. The stories in Ambulanssi (Ambulance) are melancholy plunges into the seemingly monotone lives of ordninary people whose inner life is anything but monotone. Harstad has an admirable gift of digging deep into the essence of man and conveying, in an understanding and empathetic way, the most intimate of feelings onto the pages of his books"
Kaleva, 15.2.2008
“Everyman takes over - Johan Harstad’s debut novel Buzz Aldrin belongs to the elite among Scandinavian bestsellers...As a storyteller Harstad is fluent and funny, he is a kindred spirit with Don DeLillo and John Irving, and his humour bears a likeness to that of Erlend Loe.”
Dagsstidningen /Keskisuomalainen 19.4.2007 circulation 74 84
Quotes from Italian reviews:
"The book has a rare intensity, somewhat reminiscent of One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest or even (with a slight exaggeration) of Thomas Mann’s Magic Mountain."
Daniele Abbiati, il Giornale
”It would be no exaggeration to claim that the novel Che ne è stato di te, Buzz Aldrin? ... written by the young author Johan Harstad is a strong candidate for the title Book of the year. After receiving wide attention at the Frankfurt Book Fair, it has been translated into seven languages and has become a bestseller in Scandinavia. (...) A novel packed with surprises: Already in the the two opening lines, the reader is whisked away by the author’s poetic, yet direct style.”
Gian Paolo Serino, D, la Repubblica
"To be number two and still live life as an adventure (…) the title is intended as a hommage to Buzz Aldrin, who was the second man on the moon and unknown to most of us (…)
From the very first sentence, the narrator displays a wonderful sense of irony: “The person you love consists of 78 percent water, and it hasn’t rained in a fortnight …”
Alessandro Beretta, Il Corriere della Sera - Milano
"A bildungsroman, a celebration of ”not standing out” (…) One is guided into an enchanted and solitary Nordic landscape (…) Travelling on a Ship of Fools in search of a dream."
f.f, La Repubblica - Milano
Quotes from Danish reviews:
"Superficially a cliché-ridden, predictable and over-dimensioned Norwegian novel about a drowsy young man’s awakening – but executed in language that presages a major canon of work ... The fact is that Johan Harstad has a wholly unique voice, simultaneously both concrete and soaring ... The ability to write in such a fashion, to present a situation and compose time and space about it with such a linguistic cadence cannot be learned. It is something one is born with. Harstad’s compatriot, Knut Hamsun, who was capable of the same, must be joyous in his heaven, or wherever else he might be."
Jakob Levinsen, Jyllands-Posten
"... the story is told with such sweetness and charm ... that Johan Harstad’s little masterpiece must simply be read – the sooner the better."
Jonas Hindsholm Bentzen, Børsen
"Norway already possesses a Kjærstad, a Fløgstad and a Solstad. Now there’s also a Harstad. Following preliminary skirmishes with a couple of short-story collections, young Johan Harstad has made his debut as a novelist with a giant 630-page work. The novel, “Buzz Aldrin, what happened to you in all the confusion?”, is a broadly constructed tale of breakdown and rehabilitation, of a person who prefers to live in the shadow of others and who identifies with Buzz Aldrin, the second man on the moon. That the novel has achieved such dimensions is primarily owing to the author’s extraordinary inventiveness both with and within the language. There is indeed a structure to the novel but the author takes many liberties under way, dwelling on events and unravelling life histories. The book teems with isolated episodes and singular people. There is something unrestrained, almost unruly about the narrative which is reminiscent of a Henrik Bjelke. (-) Johan Harstad writes with profound credibility about the main character’s breakdown and slow rehabilitation in the Faroe Islands, but struggles to convince the reader of the novel’s somewhat postulated conclusion. The mature loving happiness seems forced and nowhere near as convincing as the rest of this extremely impressive first novel."
Kristeligt Dagblad
"A beautifully told 1st-person narration of tremendous warmth and an intimate portrait of Faroe Island society ... very reminiscent of the younger Lars Saabye Christensen and Ingvar Ambjørnsen ... An overwhelming, splendid debut novel about a young man’s attempt to find his place in the world."
Per Månson, DBC
May 15, 2011 Kirkus review:
"Or, the long-awaited Great Faroese Novel: a splendid confusion about life, love and intrigues in the land of the midnight sun.
Thirty-something Norwegian writer/musician/all-around pop icon Harstad has been making quite a splash—or, perhaps, splashdown—with his debut novel of 2005, which was published in 11 countries before making its way to these shores and is now a feature film in the making. The story is perhaps uneasily fitted to the silver screen, for it’s big and sprawling, and most of what happens does so in the interiors of its characters. The protagonist is a lovelorn gardener named Mattias, a young man of simple pleasures and absolutely no ambition: “Here in the garden, and I wanted to be nowhere else in the world” apart—perhaps, from hanging out with his friend Jørn. Mattias finds backing for his contentment in his station in the fate of Buzz Aldrin, the astronaut, who, though in command of the Apollo mission, had all his thunder stolen by Neil Armstrong, whom history remembers as the first man on the Moon, even though Aldrin was “a more experienced pilot in just about every way.” Given the choice, Jørn, naturally enough, would want to be Armstrong, and so the twain diverges—and presto, Mattias, coming into adulthood at just about the time Olof Palme is shot dead in Sweden and the age of Scandinavian innocence dissolves, finds himself in the remote Faeroe Islands. For a man who wants nothing more than for nothing to change, the new venue would seem to be ideal. But, of course, the world intrudes even on the Far North, and Mattias finds himself caught up in weird cabals and improbable plots about which he keeps suitably mum (“Didn’t mention any catastrophes, bloodied hands or envelopes that appeared from nowhere filled with large amounts of money"). The austere landscape and people of the Faeroes become players in Harstad’s poetic narrative, half-dramatic and half-comic, which takes on memorable turns with every page as Mattias realizes just how not in control of his destiny he really is.
A modern saga of rocketships, ice floes and dreams of the Caribbean, and great fun to read."
