Advance Praise for Oneiron
‘Oneiron is literally a fabulous work. A triumph of the art of the novel.’
Dagbladet (Norway)
‘Oneiron seems to rise effortlessly to the best of international literature.’
Finlandia Prize Jury
‘Laura Lindstedt embodies with breathtaking imagination the idea that we are all equal in the face of death...[weaving] her unlikely story with the finest of writers’ hands.’
Svenska Dagbladet (Sweden)
‘Oneiron is ambitious and lush…[a] vital, critically-acclaimed novel.’
Stavanger Aftenblad (Norway)
‘A prize-worthy, magnificent meditation on the afterlife.’
Dagens Nyheter (Sweden)
‘On an international scale this is an exceptionally bright pearl of high literature – a novel that is close to perfect.’
Aamulehti (Finland)
‘Powerful...fresh and inventive.’
Klassekampen (Norway)
‘[Lindstedt’s language] is powerful: the sprawling narrative flows masterfully smoothly.’
Savon Sanomat (Finland)
‘Oneiron is a shameless, touching and absurd approach to the state we know little about, the space, the transition, the moment when we hover between life and death.’
Torborg Iglan, Fædrelandsvennen (Norway)
‘Lindstedt uses the tools of literature to form a work of art with its own rules; one can only admire her execution and her ability to depict our world to a startling effect.’
Helsingin Sanomat (Finland)
‘Oneiron is a deeply fascinating book and one of the best I’ve read for a very long time.’
Litteratursiden (Denmark)
‘An overwhelming novel.’
Anne Cathrine Straume, NRK (Norway)
‘There’s nothing predictable in Laura Lindstedt’s elegant and in every way skilful analysis of humanity.’
Turun Sanomat (Finland)
‘A visionary book.’
Marie Claire Italia
‘Fascinating and original in its reflection on life and death...[and] realistic in its analysis of power and powerlessness.’
Vigdis Moe Skarstein, Fædrelandsvennen (Norway)
‘Laura Lindstedt’s construction is, specifically, about death. In this way, Dante Alighieri and Marcel Proust are subtly invoked.’
il Giornale (Italy)
‘Oneiron is about death. It comes with interesting suggestions of how it is “on the other side,” but actually sheds more light on the various power structures on our side.’
Dagsavisen (Norway)
‘There is something therapeutic – if not, relieving – in reading Oneiron; like surrendering to a trust exercise.’
Politiken (Denmark)
oneiron
A Fantasy About the Seconds After Death
Laura Lindstedt
Translated by Owen F. Witesman
Contents
I
DANSE MACABRE
SHLOMITH PREPARES TO SHARE HER KNOWLEDGE (FOR THE SIXTH TIME)
THE CAMPFIRE
SMALL CINNAMON-BUN-SHAPED STORIES
A CERTAIN JOURNEY BEGINS
ULRIKE PLAYS DEAD
A BRIEF LESSON ON BREATHING
HEART, OH HEART!
THE STORY OF THE HEART
ESTÊVÃO SANTORO COMES CALLING
ONEIRON: THE FIRST VICTIM
TEN REASONS
WHY NINA WOULD HAVE BEEN AN EXCELLENT MOTHER THEN THEY MADE A HOME
POLINA’S LIQUOR WINDOW
SHLOMITH’S EXPERIMENTAL LIFE
II
YELLOW: THE LIGHT-RAY HOOK OF COMPASSION
TURQUOISE: WHEN NOTHING IS WHAT IT ONCE LOOKED LIKE
ELECTRIC BLUE: IF YOU COULD DIE OF ANGER
VERMILION, PURPLE, MAGENTA: THE HEART THAT REJECTED EUCALYPTUS TREES
AS BLUE AS BLUE: A LESSON IN LOVE
WHITE: A NEW SURVEY OF DIVINE LOVE
BLACK: THE WAY OUT
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
REFERENCES
PERMISSIONS
OTHER IMPORTANT SOURCES
I
When I am not, what will there be? Nothing.
But where shall I be when I am no more?
Leo Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilyich
DANSE MACABRE
Imagine you are partially blind. Minus eleven diopters. Imagine a dark exam room at an optometrist’s office. You’re sitting in a comfortable leather chair, afraid you’ll lose your sight entirely. You’ve carefully placed your old glasses on the table. The plastic rims, electric-blue ten years ago, are scuffed now. You repaired one arm with tape, which you painted blue with permanent marker. For years you’ve preferred seeing poorly to discovering the true state of your vision. You’ve pushed away the idea of going to the optometrist the same way other people put off going to the dentist. You know those people. Their breath smells, and they know it. They always speak in a slight mumble, tilting their mouth down and away. They take a step back whenever someone comes too close. But what you’ve put off is this vision exam. Every year you’ve acted more strangely, more absent-mindedly—that’s your excuse. As soon as something resembling a human appears on the horizon, you lower your gaze to the street, just in case. Your friends play along with the game. “How’s that castle in the sky coming?” “Yoo-hoo, anyone home in there?” They wave their hands in front of your eyes as if wiping snow from the windshield of a car. You laugh and tell them what’s weighing on your mind this time. Of course you’re lying. At least a bit. You fabricate more details than necessary. You don’t want to remember that reality isn’t a fog. It isn’t a shared twilight we all fumble through. Reality has terrible clarity. You don’t want to admit that you are seen but you do not see, not now, perhaps not ever again. You’re terrified. You fear that the world will run out of lens strengths, Coke-bottle glasses, and minuses. That the next time they’ll hand you a white cane, encourage you to get a guide dog, a set of talking bathroom-scales, stickers for your computer keyboard . . . But don’t think of these things now. Focus on imagining the dimexam room, the back half of the dim room, the white chart on a white, illuminated wall. It’s the old-fashioned kind of chart nowhere has any more. The chart has “E”s pointing in four directions. Letters you can’t see now.
The optometrist begins loading lenses into the device resting on the bridge of your nose. Minus eleven diopters, and you see as you do through your glasses. Poorly, murkily at best, but just enough that you can get by. You can only clearly make out the top row of “E”s—the final letter on the following line gives you trouble. Your heart pounds with terror, but let it pound. Focus your thoughts on this brief moment, this blink of an eye, because this is the moment you must be able to imagine. The optometrist adding sharpness to your gaze, one lens at a time.
Move your eyes to the tiny, ant-sized letters on the bottom edge. Things start to happen when you stop being afraid and let time slow down. No lenses are necessary any more, for the desired clarity has been achieved: the tiny creatures have begun to move. They wriggle and tremble and jerk like black pieces of string on an excessively clean floor. Like when you were a child. Don’t you remember? You stared
