MELANCHOLY II EBK

Not so much a sequel as an alternate perspective,
Jon Fosse’s coda to his brilliant and much-lauded Melancholy, picks up the story of tormented landscape painter Lars
Hertervig in 1902, shortly after his death. In the same meticulous and hypnotic prose for which
Fosse is famous, Melancholy II serves
not only as an investigation into the “collateral damage” of art, but into a
master’s tools and obsessions.

Taking place, like Melancholy, over the course of a single
day, we are treated to the thoughts of Hertervig’s sister Oline, carrying on
with her life in the absence of her beloved—if eccentric—brother. She
recalls their childhood under a domineering father, recalls Hertervig’s
difficulties fitting in, and likewise Hertervig the man: poor, always hovering
on the brink, fanatical about painting and his own perceived shortcomings both as
an artist and human being. In the same meticulous and hypnotic prose for which
Fosse is famous, Melancholy II serves
not only as an investigation into the “collateral damage” of art, but into a
master’s tools and obsessions.