Private Parts

Vatne has always been witty, but with Private Parts a new energy has come into his writing. This time I’m laughing, and I keep wanting to read aloud from the novel, almost to taste its language, which oozes with exhilarating energy.

Vatne’s language is an effective performance enhancer for Norwegian literature [... There is] something utterly stimulating about Vatne’s verbal flamboyance, which for me is worth more than a hundred sensitive contemporary authors’ experiments in inventing a new literary language. It’s entirely possible that yours truly’s ‘male menopause’ is shaping up to be more like a second phase of puberty, but it’s rare for me to laugh as hard as I did here.

In language both radical and pictorial, Vatne has written a refreshingly imaginative and audaciously reflective novel driven by energy and plot. But even if the author appears to have no other ambitions than to entertain the reader in a slightly satirical way – an art in itself – and with his linguistic momentum and virtuosity inflicts constant bursts of laughter on the reader, there are also gripes and grudges aimed at town and country and social development, and insights into the male midlife crisis, which give a deeper dimension to the text and lend it an underlying seriousness that goes beyond pure comedy.

Follow Arnstein’s awakening is an entertaining experience. The portrayal of his relationship with his wife is also done well. The author obviously knows a lot about village life. (...) Author Bjørn Vatne must have had a lot of fun writing this book. (...) I chuckled at many of the descriptions and formulations, but at the same time Private Parts has something important to say about male midlife crisis in a little west coast village. And many of us could learn a thing or two from Arnstein and Lindis’s relationship.