A Close Reading of the Opening Paragraph in Nordic Fiction, and Why Structure Outlives Inspiration

There is a paragraph near the beginning of Kjell Askildsen’s Everything Before Me (translated from the Norwegian by Seán Kinsella, published by Dalkey Archive Press) that I have returned to perhaps a dozen times. A man sits in a room. He has arranged a meeting. The other person has not arrived. The paragraph describes the … Continue reading "A Close Reading of the Opening Paragraph in Nordic…