Novel 11, Book 18, By Dag Solstad, trans Sverre Lyngstad

"Existence has never answered my questions," Bjørn Hansen tells his friend, Dr Schiøtz. "Just imagine, to live an entire life, my own life at that, without having found the path to where my deepest needs can be seen and heard!"

The younger Bjørn, "a poor boy from a Norwegian coastal town" viewed the future in terms of women rather than career. Work being a means to an end, he studied economics at university. Ironically time brings him success in work but not in relationships. His fascination with a divorcée, Turid Lammers, caused him to abandon his wife and young son and follow her to Kongsberg. Over 14 years that fascination evaporated. When the amateur dramatic society stages Ibsen's Wild Duck with Turid, Bjørn and Dr Schiøtz all involved, the play brings home to him the psychological weakness of his position. By contrast he has done well in work, becoming town treasurer.

After freeing himself from Turid, Bjørn has a new demand made on him, his son Peter whom he has not seen for six years. Now Peter is coming to Kongsberg to study. Bjørn offers him accommodation and is amazed by the boy's physical resemblance to himself, but also by his insensitive confidence.

The delineation of Peter's impact on Bjørn's life is brilliant and subtle. Dr Schiøtz was an unwise choice of confident. He understands Bjørn and assists him to effect a dramatic change that will dispel his continuous anomie. Whether we should take Bjørn's action as literal history or as a metaphoric possibility, a behavioural extremity, is unimportant. What matters is Solstad's dedicated application to the mysteries of human conduct and relations that his town treasurer illustrates.