Grace: A Novel

... how can you hope to die with grace? That's the dilemma of Johan Sletten, a man in his 60s who has been diagnosed with an incurable disease, presumably cancer, and warned that he will die a nasty death within six months. Johan's life, as he painfully reviews it, has been largely a failure -- a mediocre career as a journalist, capped by a scandal that forced him into retirement, a miserable first marriage, a loveless fatherhood and a son he's ashamed of. The only grace he can claim for his life is the love of his second wife Mai, whom he literally calls his "grace". Now that he must live through the horror of dying, his most agonizing fear is the disgrace of losing control, of dying disgustingly, as his own father had died. Mai is a doctor, and it's with Mai whom Johan pleads for help in his assertion of a graceful death.This is not a first person tale; supposedly Johan is a 'friend' of the narrator, but the course of his death and the scenes from his memory are all told from Johan's viewpoint. I think that's one of the limiting factors of this novella; the 'words' are not really Johan's, and Johan lies on his hospital bed just beyond our psychological credence. Mai is an unknown hovering presence, an object of Johan's mental perception, but perhaps it was the author's intention to imply that "another person", even one's sole beloved object, can never be depended upon to be 'known'.One of Johan's happier memories is of his childhood, of picking wild strawberries with his mother, yet even that memory stirs a fear of abandonment and isolation in him. Wild Strawberries? Haven't we encountered such a scene in another work of art from Scandinavia? Another tale of the approaching death of an old man? Linn Ullmann is the daughter of actress Liv Ullmann and film-maker Ingmar Bergmann, whose film "Wild Strawberries" is among the most poignant portrayals of aging and death ever produced. I can't deny that I sought, bought, and read this novella because of my interest in the artistry of the author's parents. And I have to wonder, reluctantly, whether Linn Ullmann's parentage didn't play a role in the success of her writing career. Would this novel have convinced a publisher to risk money on releasing it if the author's name had been Jana Jonsen? Well, it's not a bad novella ... a little thin at times and awfully doleful. Honestly, it reads like a scenario for a film (and guess who the director might be) in which the characters would develop curves - dimensions - and evoke more empathy simply by being flesh rather than print-face. The director would allow the actors and actresses to improvise their lines, to speak from their own inhabitation of their roles. That was Bergmann's method in his later films. Appreciating this novella requires just that sort of collaboration between the author and the reader.

A really great opening to a book dealing with a subject not everyone is comfortable with ... approaching death. The writing is sharp, incisive and sardonic, the plot deals very well with a difficult subject and I would have given five stars if somewhere along the way the subject matter hadn't overtaken the delivery, but it did, and then the weightiness took over. This was probably intentional, probably admirable, but didn't make for the most enjoyable of reads. Still, would recommend it, when you are feeling bouyant.

This novel about dying, without the cloying sentimentality that accompanies most novels about death It is about the character of a self obsessed man who approaches death with great fear and very little dignity and a wife who completely lacks sentimentality, but possesses great dignity and great love.These two characters are really the only two characters in the book. The book is very short, and the addition of other characters if portrayed as honestly, could have provided some interesting complexity to the book.

An interesting novel for thinking about and discussing end-of-life issues. Readable, well-written, but did Ingmar Bergman's writer daughter need to make quite so many references to "wild strawberries"?

Bittersweet novel of aging and of love.

Kind of a stark book, but an interesting read, different from what I usually read. It makes you think about what you want to have lived your life like, when it's all said and done.

Read this book. It is full of this well titled book. Johan and Mai will be with you long after you finish.

It was the most amazing use of words I can remember reading how it turned an everyday store into a daring adventure is truly engrossing.