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The Bridges
English, Norwegian (translation)
183 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1966
5 people are currently reading
318 people want to read
About the author
Tarjei Vesaas
89books379followersTarjei Vesaas was a Norwegian poet and novelist. Written in Nynorsk, his work is characterized by simple, terse, and symbolic prose. His stories often cover simple rural people that undergo a severe psychological drama and who according to critics are described with immense psychological insight. Commonly dealing with themes such as death, guilt, angst, and other deep and intractable human emotions, the Norwegian natural landscape is a prevalent feature in his works. His debut was in 1923 with Children of Humans (Menneskebonn), but he had his breakthrough in 1934 with The Great Cycle (Det store spelet). His mastery of the nynorsk language, landsmål (see Norwegian language), has contributed to its acceptance as a medium of world class literature.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 44 reviews
January 10, 2023
Like , this is a haunting novel of grief and sexual awakening and the fundamental unknowability of other people and the inhuman power of rivers and forest clearings and wind and rain. It rains in The Bridges. When I finished that chapter, I glanced out the window and was surprised it wasn’t raining here, too. Such is the power of this unreality.
Even its flaws are perfect.
Even its flaws are perfect.
December 17, 2014
How do I begin?
We haven't told a soul.
How can I communicate the thrumming pulse of this story, and the taut chords that vibrate within me, without giving it away?
I'm walking on a knife-edge.
Aud and Torvil. Friends since childhood. Torvil and Aud. And her.
Don't think. Hide yourself. Press yourself in deeper.
This book is spooky. A walk in the night-dark wood. Something you wish you'd never seen.
We're involved now.
Sentences short, vivid, distressing. And the dialogue, so serious. Do teenagers really talk like that in rural Norway? So many words unsaid, gliding along the murky depths of the conversation. Don't disturb the bog.
I didn't want this to happen.
I shouldn't say any more. I just want to leave the story there, intact, glowing on the kitchen table in front of me, still humming with the electric charge of what happened. And silence. So much silence.
No one must witness this.
Perhaps it's because I'm a city girl, but there is something so haunting and unknowable about a dense, dark wood. What inhabits this place? What goes on unseen, to suddenly break through the calm veneer of two lives, unbidden?
We are all the places in the wood. Even though no one is here now, the wood is dense with memories where the grass has been trampled down an infinite number of times. We are the places where the words fell, life-giving and life-destroying and paralysing and uplifting. We are the infinitely many kind, hidden places where people have come together. We are the small places that will never be forgotten, that people bear in their memories till their dying day, although they are quite insignificant: a stone or two to sit on, spring foliage, a brook almost without water in the early summer.
We are the long, gliding hours, and all the places. At every step there is a memorial. If they were visible, we would appear as one ghostly web of life.
The perspective shifts through different characters, dreams, places, pronouns of all shapes and sizes. And you will read on, and on, caught in the ghostly narrative web. And when you have finished, you will sit there, paralysed, unable to compose a proper review, but feeling that you have witnessed something significant, something important.
Is there anything more you would like to say?
Read this.
We haven't told a soul.
How can I communicate the thrumming pulse of this story, and the taut chords that vibrate within me, without giving it away?
I'm walking on a knife-edge.
Aud and Torvil. Friends since childhood. Torvil and Aud. And her.
Don't think. Hide yourself. Press yourself in deeper.
This book is spooky. A walk in the night-dark wood. Something you wish you'd never seen.
We're involved now.
Sentences short, vivid, distressing. And the dialogue, so serious. Do teenagers really talk like that in rural Norway? So many words unsaid, gliding along the murky depths of the conversation. Don't disturb the bog.
I didn't want this to happen.
I shouldn't say any more. I just want to leave the story there, intact, glowing on the kitchen table in front of me, still humming with the electric charge of what happened. And silence. So much silence.
No one must witness this.
Perhaps it's because I'm a city girl, but there is something so haunting and unknowable about a dense, dark wood. What inhabits this place? What goes on unseen, to suddenly break through the calm veneer of two lives, unbidden?
We are all the places in the wood. Even though no one is here now, the wood is dense with memories where the grass has been trampled down an infinite number of times. We are the places where the words fell, life-giving and life-destroying and paralysing and uplifting. We are the infinitely many kind, hidden places where people have come together. We are the small places that will never be forgotten, that people bear in their memories till their dying day, although they are quite insignificant: a stone or two to sit on, spring foliage, a brook almost without water in the early summer.
We are the long, gliding hours, and all the places. At every step there is a memorial. If they were visible, we would appear as one ghostly web of life.
The perspective shifts through different characters, dreams, places, pronouns of all shapes and sizes. And you will read on, and on, caught in the ghostly narrative web. And when you have finished, you will sit there, paralysed, unable to compose a proper review, but feeling that you have witnessed something significant, something important.
Is there anything more you would like to say?
Read this.
September 16, 2019
Sorrow lies behind a stone, but travels further out beyond this, further than the wind that penetrates inland, spreading out from what is torn up, from what is shut in � when it feels as if what is of most value has foundered.
A boy and a girl, Torvil and Aud. They have grown up together, living as next door neighbours beside an unnamed river. Their families hope they will decide to get married one day, but the two teenagers, even as they spent their whole days together and are clearly in love with each other, would like to make their own path through life. This is the story of their loss of innocence, of Torvil and Aud being suddenly confronted by ugliness and pain and despair, by death and lies. . Their descent into darkness will test their relationship and will challenge their comfortable, easygoing worldview. Things you take for granted are so easily misplaced or lost.
“I thought I knew just as much as you do about everything around us.� he said. “But now a chasm has opened up, and you’re on the other side.�
Tarjei Vesaas always writes about his beloved rural county in Norway, yet he speaks in an universal language about our inner landscape. He is a poet because metaphors describe best the things that move us and motivate us. Aud and Torvil may be lost in a dark place, chased by a huge dog that represents death, but they act instinctively in the crisis. Instead of throwing the first stone, looking for a murderer, the two offer a helping hand to another troubled soul. they rise a protecting wall around a wounded girl.
Valborg is the third corner of the relationship triangle, another teenage girl who is lost in the dark forest. She has secrets, deadly secrets, and is rightfully suspicious of an outside world that has treated her cruelly and of strangers who will most likely misunderstand her motives. Yet Valborg is desperate for answers, for finding her way back to the real world from a place of nightmares.
I didn’t want this to happen. I would have given anything in the world for it not to happen. It was done before I was aware of it. These things have been said a thousand times beside the river, beside the stones, beside deserted houses. A thousand times they have been just as true and just as bitter.
Will Torvil and Aud pull back Valborg from the edge? Or will the mysterious girl, like a drowning man, pull them down into the abyss after her? The river, strong and silent for eternity, doesn’t care one way or another.
Somewhere close by the deep current flowed past, silent as always.
Vesaas has use the imagery of rivers and water as a symbol for life in all the other novels I’ve read by him. It may not be the more original analogy, but under his pen, it becomes something more, it gains depth and texture, it transcends time and geography to reach the deepest parts of the soul. As an author, he continues to amaze me with his talent of saying more with fewer words than anybody else I’ve read so far. His thoughts are not ignorant of the darkness, but they map out a path to acceptance of the inevitable, to inner peace, to beauty in the midst of an all encompassing sadness.
Clean, cleansing water. Pouring water. At times I see water like floating stars.
Endlessly gliding water � so that every object turned towards it is polished soft and smooth: after an eternity of gliding, stones are as soft as a cheek � while it changes, changes all the time. Sparkling water above hidden forests and hidden chasms � that’s how it is in my thoughts.
In this particular story of Aud and Torvil and Valborg, the river is full of hidden dangers, and we are all alone on different shores, but that’s exactly why we need to build bridges, why we need to light a fire against the darkness.
We are down there and in there where the light does not reach: we have our own light, we crawl past each other with our lights, and move on, lonely in great darkness.
>>><<<>>><<<>>><<<
I am at the bridges, I can tell myself; I am there and I belong. [...] Here is my groping hand.
March 5, 2015
3.5 The Bridge stands for many different things in this short novel. The prose is poetic, succinct, no words wasted in this story of two young people, who have lived by each other their whole lives. Expected by their parents to eventually marry, they are still just friends. Their certain future will change when they make a horrific discovery on the side of the bridge. Another woman will enter the picture and things take an unexpected turn.
The author treats these characters with unbounded compassion. Using dreams and minimalist prose the author creates a suspenseful atmosphere and a study of human relationships and an unknowing future.
ARC from NetGalley.
The author treats these characters with unbounded compassion. Using dreams and minimalist prose the author creates a suspenseful atmosphere and a study of human relationships and an unknowing future.
ARC from NetGalley.
October 8, 2022
A strange, evocative short 1960s novel from a Norwegian writer. Not sure at times what exactly was being communicated in the lyrical text. I had not heard of this author, described on the cover as Scandinavia’s greatest modern writer. I stumbled upon this book in the book rack at a hospital; something to read while my nonagenarian father napped; my copy still has as a bookmark a peel strip from some kind of dermatitis product.
The Panther edition cover shows a young 1970s couple, their modish image somewhat at odds to the somber tone and almost timeless contents of the book. On the cover, the couple are having a private moment, lost within themselves, in the woods � there is no bridge or water in sight.
The bridges are in the text, but are also metaphorical.
The Panther edition cover shows a young 1970s couple, their modish image somewhat at odds to the somber tone and almost timeless contents of the book. On the cover, the couple are having a private moment, lost within themselves, in the woods � there is no bridge or water in sight.
The bridges are in the text, but are also metaphorical.
October 17, 2020
Two teenagers—a girl and a boy—make a horrifying discovery in the woods near where they live. The closest of friends, Aud and Torvil have grown up together living in twin adjacent houses, alongside the river, built by the best of friends so their families would be close to each other, their lives forever happily entwined. Aud and Torvil are studying for college, and their parents wish for them to marry. The young people are not so sure. Chaste yet aware of the potential for irrevocable changes to occur between them, they are in a heightened state of uncertainty over the future when they stumble upon their discovery. And through it comes another into their midst. This is an achingly beautiful novel, enchanted in that singular timeless way Vesaas has of telling a story. The tale unfurls in slow agony, in turn wandering to the poetic and allegorical, but still steady in its shattering narrative progress.
We lie like longing beside the footpaths.
We lie like fear above the hurrying highway where life goes to waste, where man hurries and hurries after emptiness. We are beside the houses in which they shut themselves away: the fortresses they have built in order to shut themselves in with their brief joys.
We are the thin, complaining wind that brushes past, searching for what cannot be present.
We are the wind behind the wind—that searches in defiance, in case something is to be found all the same.
We are where everyone is, and where no one was. We search night after night.
December 20, 2023
Atmospheric Scandi drama about two teens who find something horrific in the woods near their homes ........ they have to grow up fast to cope with the change in their otherwise idyllic lives.
A slim book but as dense as the forest most of it is set in. Had to read several passages twice to get the full intent. Vessas writes about relatively small but impactful slices of rural life. Worth a punt.
A slim book but as dense as the forest most of it is set in. Had to read several passages twice to get the full intent. Vessas writes about relatively small but impactful slices of rural life. Worth a punt.
January 28, 2015
Tarjei Vesaas' supreme skill, besides simply his sheer compassion and understanding of the human and natural worlds, is the ability to capture such complex and subtle designs so simply and clearly. His words have the concise elegance of poetry, his images a graceful symbolic power that need not be unraveled or worked at to be understood: they are what they are, expressing themselves directly as sensations, precise and exactly right.
His last three novels each saw him nominated for a Nobel Prize he never received -- this was the second of those, of a piece with their excellence. Where was about the extremely personal process of coming to grips with and interpreting a loss, and was mostly about individuals existing within the larger natural world, this one is about understanding between three people, how lives are touched and changed by tragedy that is or is not theirs and what they can do with that. It's wonderful and perfect.
Why, then, was this seemingly only published in a single edition each in the States and Britain, and how has it gone entirely unreviewed on here til now?
His last three novels each saw him nominated for a Nobel Prize he never received -- this was the second of those, of a piece with their excellence. Where was about the extremely personal process of coming to grips with and interpreting a loss, and was mostly about individuals existing within the larger natural world, this one is about understanding between three people, how lives are touched and changed by tragedy that is or is not theirs and what they can do with that. It's wonderful and perfect.
Why, then, was this seemingly only published in a single edition each in the States and Britain, and how has it gone entirely unreviewed on here til now?
October 6, 2021
Enigmatic, hermetic. Withholding and colored in the margins with crayons of pagan/animist shadowing, this is one that stays with you for reasons hard-pressed to finger. A sort of Walpurgisnacht of teenage blues with no good Abbess W in sight.
These night woods are ripe for witchcraft.
These night woods are ripe for witchcraft.
September 11, 2012
Vesaas is a master and The Bridges is unique, powerful, sublime, but still I can't help but wonder what has been lost in the translation, and whether it is in fact works of fewer words that are hardest to translate. Poetry, for eg, not just because of rhyme, alliteration, musicality, but because with so few words there is no chance to qualify, elaborate, put in context. The Bridges is like that - spare, and sections of it read like blank verse, and you get the feeling it is suggestive as much as descriptive, but whether enough of the original is being transcribed into English for these suggestive seeds to reach fertile soil is not clear to me. Partly, maybe, I should read it again. Certainly I should. It's a good book, and Vesaas repays rereading. But still I'd suggest as the best place to start, partly because there's more to grasp on to, partly because it's more traditional and seems to have made the transition to English in a more intact state, and partly because its main character, the intellectually-disabled Mattis, is perfectly suited to Vesaas's peculiar narrative style, which doesn't quite approximate the points of view of the children in The Ice Palace or the teenagers in The Bridges. As it is, on this reading, The Bridges was more important to me for the feeling it left me with than for the act of reading it. I love the story; I love the imagery; but some of the language (especially the long transciptions of seemingly mundane dialogue) made me impatient. Still, my 1970 William Morrow hardcover edition was so beautifully produced (despite the lame cover) that just holding it in my hands was a pleasure.
February 10, 2015
The prose is simple ...touching ...and tender.
Torvil and Aud live next door to each other. Best friends all their lives. They are 18 years old now.
They find the corpse of newborn baby in a forest.
Valborg - the young mother of the baby.
Torvil & Aud share everything with each other --(no secrets), yet when Torvil falls for Valborg things become more complex.
"Torvil, I'm forced to talk about what troubles both of us. I suppose I must presume that what you feel today and will feel tomorrow and the day after tomorrow and the year and so on--about Valborg and you. That is wasn't something that simply exploded because of a mood".
Such beauty -- emotional integrity --rich in solace!
This was my first book by Tarjei Vesaas. It won't be my last!
Thank you SO much, for the opportunity to read this quietly brilliant story [netgalley, the publishing company: Thank you]
With honor and blessings to Tarjei Vesaas. (I understand he passed away this year) I can see this little 'gem' of a book as a film!
Torvil and Aud live next door to each other. Best friends all their lives. They are 18 years old now.
They find the corpse of newborn baby in a forest.
Valborg - the young mother of the baby.
Torvil & Aud share everything with each other --(no secrets), yet when Torvil falls for Valborg things become more complex.
"Torvil, I'm forced to talk about what troubles both of us. I suppose I must presume that what you feel today and will feel tomorrow and the day after tomorrow and the year and so on--about Valborg and you. That is wasn't something that simply exploded because of a mood".
Such beauty -- emotional integrity --rich in solace!
This was my first book by Tarjei Vesaas. It won't be my last!
Thank you SO much, for the opportunity to read this quietly brilliant story [netgalley, the publishing company: Thank you]
With honor and blessings to Tarjei Vesaas. (I understand he passed away this year) I can see this little 'gem' of a book as a film!
November 10, 2020
After reading the Ice Palace, I was really looking forward to reading another book by this author. While this book failed to deliver on my expectations, I still am glad I read it. I enjoyed the perspective shifts between first, second, and third person as well as between Aud, Torvil, and an outside narrator. This did, however, make the plot much more difficult to follow. I was hoping to see more of Aud and Torvil’s family, and despite them saying their families were best friends I do not think we ever saw them all together. I did appreciate the author’s ability to give us these intimate views into the characters� lives while also withholding so much information from us. I am not really sure what happened in most of this novel, but it was interesting to see this situation unravel. This is definitely something I would like to reread later and to hopefully get more out of it the second time through
March 12, 2013
The first chapters make this seem like a charming pastorale, but soon it becomes clear "The Bridges" is about trauma, secrecy, repetition, taboo, and uncontrollable desire. The style is spare, propulsive, poetic, hallucinatory and filled with bold shifts in perspective. If the language occasionally feels overly simplistic and placid, the words are skating over an abyss of troubled meanings to which its three teenage protagonists are afraid to give voice. I got this through inter-library loan and it's well worth seeking out - Vesaas was nominated several times for the Nobel and his strange and compelling vision deserves a wider readership. (4.5 stars)
December 7, 2020
მომხიბლავი იყ� ყველაფერ� რა� ამ წიგნში გადამხდა.
სხვა წიგნებისგა� განსხვავებით ვესოსი� ნორვეგიული, ცივი გარემო არ იგრძნობოდა სიუჟეტში. პირიქი�, სითბოთ� და სიყვარულით აღსავს� ტექსტი�. ეს უკანასკნელ� ორ� პირდაპირ და ცალსახად არ არის ნაჩვენებ� და აღწერილი, მაგრამ მე მაინ� მეგრძნობინებოდ�.
გარდ� ნატიფი სიუჟეტის� და რამდენიმ� მაგიურ რეალიზმშ� გადაბიჯებისა, ერთი ძალიან მნიშვნელოვან� თემა აქვს წამოწეულ� ვესოსს. ეს არის ახალგაზრდობი� პრობლემები და კერძოდ ის პრობლემა რომელსაც ახალგაზრდები არ უნდა აწყდებოდნე�. მეტს არაფერ� ვიტყვი ამ თემაზე სპოილერშ�, რო� არ ჩამეთვალოს. ყოველი შემთხვევისთვის იმდენა� კარგად ჰქონდა სამი მთავარ� გმირ� - უდ, თორვილ და ვალბორ� აღწერილი, რო� მაფიქრებინებ� - უეჭველად კარგ� მამა უნდა ყოფილიყო მეთქ�.
სიუჟეტში მომხიბლა იმ ზმანებებმა და გადახვევებმა, რომლებიც თითქოსდა არაფრიდა� გაჩნდა� და მალევე ხვდები, რო� ყველაზ� მნიშვნელოვნები სწორედაც რო� ეგენ� იყვნენ. თავდაპირველა� ეს იყ� დიდი ქვის ჩრდილი, შემდეგ ძაღლის სიზმარ�, შემდეგ ტევრ� და �.�.
ჯერჯერობით ვესოსი� წიგნებ� შორი� ყველაზ� მეტა� მომეწონა.
(და რაღაცნაირა� მაინ� პოეტურ� ენ� აქვს აკრიანის ნათარგმნ ვესოსს)
სხვა წიგნებისგა� განსხვავებით ვესოსი� ნორვეგიული, ცივი გარემო არ იგრძნობოდა სიუჟეტში. პირიქი�, სითბოთ� და სიყვარულით აღსავს� ტექსტი�. ეს უკანასკნელ� ორ� პირდაპირ და ცალსახად არ არის ნაჩვენებ� და აღწერილი, მაგრამ მე მაინ� მეგრძნობინებოდ�.
გარდ� ნატიფი სიუჟეტის� და რამდენიმ� მაგიურ რეალიზმშ� გადაბიჯებისა, ერთი ძალიან მნიშვნელოვან� თემა აქვს წამოწეულ� ვესოსს. ეს არის ახალგაზრდობი� პრობლემები და კერძოდ ის პრობლემა რომელსაც ახალგაზრდები არ უნდა აწყდებოდნე�. მეტს არაფერ� ვიტყვი ამ თემაზე სპოილერშ�, რო� არ ჩამეთვალოს. ყოველი შემთხვევისთვის იმდენა� კარგად ჰქონდა სამი მთავარ� გმირ� - უდ, თორვილ და ვალბორ� აღწერილი, რო� მაფიქრებინებ� - უეჭველად კარგ� მამა უნდა ყოფილიყო მეთქ�.
სიუჟეტში მომხიბლა იმ ზმანებებმა და გადახვევებმა, რომლებიც თითქოსდა არაფრიდა� გაჩნდა� და მალევე ხვდები, რო� ყველაზ� მნიშვნელოვნები სწორედაც რო� ეგენ� იყვნენ. თავდაპირველა� ეს იყ� დიდი ქვის ჩრდილი, შემდეგ ძაღლის სიზმარ�, შემდეგ ტევრ� და �.�.
ჯერჯერობით ვესოსი� წიგნებ� შორი� ყველაზ� მეტა� მომეწონა.
(და რაღაცნაირა� მაინ� პოეტურ� ენ� აქვს აკრიანის ნათარგმნ ვესოსს)
August 7, 2018
Thoroughly enjoyed this one.
November 20, 2020
Torvil is one of the most annoying people I have ever read about. And what was up with the dog? Definitely one of the least satisfying books I've read all year, but it gets two stars for being short and for being well written, I guess.
July 24, 2021
Just remind me never to read two books in a row by the same (remarkable) author. The Ice Palace was too powerful for The Bridges to reach its full potential in my heart but apart from the anticipated and never realized emotional connection it is still a similarly disturbing read.
In addition , I’m not sure how much is ‘lost in translation� but the conversations between the three adolescents, no matter the circumstances and the changing style of the decades, seem stifled and unnatural in the extreme.
In addition , I’m not sure how much is ‘lost in translation� but the conversations between the three adolescents, no matter the circumstances and the changing style of the decades, seem stifled and unnatural in the extreme.
August 25, 2024
This is a very short book that took me a long time to read and feel and understand.
It’s really something to feel.
It’s very atmospheric, abstract , meandering , poetic but packs a punch at the last few pages.
I honestly want to check out more work by this celebrated, award winning Norwegian author.
It’s really something to feel.
It’s very atmospheric, abstract , meandering , poetic but packs a punch at the last few pages.
I honestly want to check out more work by this celebrated, award winning Norwegian author.
January 15, 2024
Another wonderful book by Tarjei Vesaas in which he explores the difficulties of communication and isolation. Much like his other works, “the Ice Palace� and “The Birds� there is a great meaning in all that is not said between the characters. I would argue that this novel is a coming of age story, in which the protagonists experience uncertainty. Not knowing what they will come across in life. Having no control over certain things that will get thrown their way. This story of three young 18 year olds who come together under tragic circumstances and try to build “bridges� between one another is embellished by the lyrical prose that is unique to Vesaas. It is also a beautiful example of the connection between the characters and the nature around them. A nature that is alive and guides the characters through their emotions.
July 24, 2014
Tarjei Vesaas is amazing. This novel accomplishes again what was one of my favorite aspects of The Ice Palace: the creation of a dream-like atmosphere that is within the bounds of realism. What did not work well for me in this novel were the interspersed chapters of actual dreams and other strange metaphysical states. I suppose these did contribute to the atmosphere of the novel, but I was left feeling adrift and confused by the unknown perspective. I ended up reading this more as a short story about the three central characters by essentially skipping the dream chapters. If I missed something critical by doing this, it didn't take away from my connection to the characters and their story, or detract from the power this novel had over me. I liked the way the focus of the story shifts from the initial high drama (a young woman with an unwanted pregnancy gives birth alone in the woods; the lifeless baby is discovered by two teen friends who want to help), to an interpersonal drama as the three try to navigate changing relationships. I also did (eventually) like the symbolism of the bridge within the story. Even I, as a very surface reader, could identify a symbolic meaning for the bridge: transition, from youth to adulthood and from friendship to relationship. If that was the only role of the bridge within the story, I might not have been so pleased with this book, but the bridge also serves as the setting for the lovely final scenes of parting. Here Vesaas shows us how seemingly minor, subtle things have weight and power, and can communicate so much: two people are walking towards each other on a bridge. Are heads held high? Do eyes meet? Do they stride more freely as they pass? I will add one more thing to this review, a memorable excerpt that is from the close of a difficult conversation between Aud and Torvil:
Aud, too, got to her feet. And was free. What else she was he could not tell.
'Good night, Torvil. I shall go for a walk in the wind tomorrow.'
'In the wind?'
'Yes, whether there is any wind or not.'
Aud, too, got to her feet. And was free. What else she was he could not tell.
'Good night, Torvil. I shall go for a walk in the wind tomorrow.'
'In the wind?'
'Yes, whether there is any wind or not.'
January 31, 2018
Were this a film I’d probably describe it as mumblecore; were it a music album, shoegaze. Three eighteen-year-olds meet in various combinations and talk in circles. Not that they do a lot of talking and a lot of the talking they do is to avoid talking about the stuff they really should be talking about. There’s also a lot of standing, sitting or lying around. And a bit of walking most of which is to get them from home and their cardboard parents to where they’ve agreed to rendezvous—under a tree or by a river—and back again. It’s all very strange and awkward.
Aud and Torvil have lived in adjoining houses all their lives. They’re best friends and their parents expect one day they’ll inevitably become a couple. Aware of this the two perversely resist becoming romantically involved. Besides, as they often point out, they’re “not grown-up� enough to be thinking about stuff like that. What you have to bear in mind is when this book was written and where it’s set. It was published in 1966—the same year as Valley of the Dolls—bܳ The Bridges couldn’t be more different if it was set on the moon. These are simple people. All Aud and Torvil do is study—or say they’re studying (nothing’s changed there then in the past fifty years)—and go for walks in the countryside.
It’s on a solitary constitutional Torvil stumbles across Aud in tears behind a large rock. She’s discovered something that shakes her to her very core. At first she doesn’t want Torvil to see it but he insists:
provides this description of Vesaas’s writing:
This is a strange and unsettling book. In some of the chapters it’s hard to work out who the “I� is that’s talking and a fair bit of time is spent on a dream Aud and Torvil share. And then there’s the question of how many bridges there are and what they represent. I’ll be honest I struggled with these sections and they didn’t become any clearer as the book stumbled on. This is how in The New York Times describes these sections:
Aud and Torvil have lived in adjoining houses all their lives. They’re best friends and their parents expect one day they’ll inevitably become a couple. Aware of this the two perversely resist becoming romantically involved. Besides, as they often point out, they’re “not grown-up� enough to be thinking about stuff like that. What you have to bear in mind is when this book was written and where it’s set. It was published in 1966—the same year as Valley of the Dolls—bܳ The Bridges couldn’t be more different if it was set on the moon. These are simple people. All Aud and Torvil do is study—or say they’re studying (nothing’s changed there then in the past fifty years)—and go for walks in the countryside.
It’s on a solitary constitutional Torvil stumbles across Aud in tears behind a large rock. She’s discovered something that shakes her to her very core. At first she doesn’t want Torvil to see it but he insists:
Whispering: ‘Can you see it?�They agree not to tell anyone what they’re found—Aud is the driving forced there: “I do know that we’re not going to involve more people just yet. Someone needs all the miserable help we can give”—and return the next day to bury the baby only to be met by a girl ages with them, Valborg, who they learn was the child’s mother and whom they end up arranging to meet up with every few days over the next couple of weeks to talk and try to support but none of them really get anywhere; their conversations are strained and no one really opens up. The only significant thing that happens is, with the introduction of another girl (and a sexually active one at that), the bond between Aud and Torvil is put to the test.
Torvil nodded. He felt numbed.
Yes, he could see it, dimly in the half-light. Something that could only be a new-born, naked, lifeless child. It was lying under a few blackening twigs that had been awkwardly scraped together, ready to darken along with them.
It was a frightening sight when you had never imagined anything like it. The light fading around it made it seem even harder to bear.
Quick glances at each other.
‘Did you see it?�
‘Yes.�
provides this description of Vesaas’s writing:
[H]is work is characterized by simple, terse, and symbolic prose. His stories are often about simple rural people that undergo a severe psychological drama and who according to critics are described with immense psychological insight. Commonly dealing with themes such as death, guilt, angst, and other deep and intractable human emotions, the Norwegian natural landscape is a prevalent feature in his works.It’s a pretty decent description of how this novel plays out. There’s more than a touch of the Pinteresque here too. Never has the open countryside felt so enclosed and foreboding; it doesn’t help that much of the action takes place around dusk. There’s one scene, for example, where the three shelter under a tree:
They leant against the trunk. First stand and simply be aware of being together. But it was not possible. There was something about Valborg that prevented it; she was not open, but stiff and distant. On the other hand, the radiance over which she had no control was alive and active. Aud and Torvil were scared. They must make progress—bܳ how was it going to turn out?It’s oppressive. The dialogue too, as with Pinter, is sometimes clumsy and unnatural by today’s standards. describes it “like � two men sawing wood.�
The two of them stood trying to guess what was the matter with Valborg.
The tree was not so very thick after all: each of them had to face in a slightly different direction. […] Valborg in particular positioned herself so that she was looking at nothing besides the wet woods.
This is a strange and unsettling book. In some of the chapters it’s hard to work out who the “I� is that’s talking and a fair bit of time is spent on a dream Aud and Torvil share. And then there’s the question of how many bridges there are and what they represent. I’ll be honest I struggled with these sections and they didn’t become any clearer as the book stumbled on. This is how in The New York Times describes these sections:
Paralleling the story, the form of the book as well moves out beyond narrative. Interpolated chapters are sunk, like vertical shafts, into the depths of life, into the blind, instinctual forces of nature, a Roethke‐like world of minute, creeping things and flowing waters and nightmare images of horror. These passages are often obscure and, one suspects, at times escape the writer's control; but they contain some of the most impressive language in the book.The quote of the cover from Literary Review calls the book a “masterpiece� but I didn’t feel like I’d read one when I was finished. It actually felt more like an experience rather than a straightforward story. I read The Birds a couple of years back which some regard as Vesaas’s best work—although The Ice Palace may be better known—bܳ I had much the same problem with it as I had with The Bridges. In my review I wrote:
I have to be honest here. I can see why people love this book but I failed to connect with it... So I don’t know. This book ticks so many boxes, things that I look for in an ideal read, but for some reason failed to hold my interest.The thing about both books is I feel I’m missing something. Vesaas is hugely popular in his home country so there must be something there. I have to say I did find Catherine Wilson’s essay helpful so maybe I’ll give him one more go.
September 22, 2022
Il est des choses qui lentement prennent forme..
Il y a vraiment quelque chose d'indicible dans le monde de Vesaas, à la fois poétique et raffiné. Un concentré de beauté qui embrasse l'intérieur des êtres et leur intimité ..
Nous sommes les temps éternels et tous les lieux à la fois. Chaque pas est un souvenir. Si cela était visible, nous apparaîtrions un tissu d’ombres vivantes.
À mes yeux, vous n'êtes que beauté et délicatesse, mon cher Vesaas.
Il y a vraiment quelque chose d'indicible dans le monde de Vesaas, à la fois poétique et raffiné. Un concentré de beauté qui embrasse l'intérieur des êtres et leur intimité ..
Nous sommes les temps éternels et tous les lieux à la fois. Chaque pas est un souvenir. Si cela était visible, nous apparaîtrions un tissu d’ombres vivantes.
À mes yeux, vous n'êtes que beauté et délicatesse, mon cher Vesaas.
July 19, 2016
Ah, what a beautiful ending. The things I remember loving about The Ice Palace are the things I love here: mysterious spare dialogue, all the unsaid things, the tension -- that can come from the holding of hands!--, and the nature.
Read
May 13, 2022Mais um livro atmosférico do senhor Tarjei Vesaas que descreve com lirismo e sutileza o mundo natural no qual seus personagens Torvil e Aud estão imersos como um Adão e Eva,irmãos?, amigos? quase amantes?,no seu pequeno paraíso, sol,pontes,florestas escuras e suas clareiras ,evocando um idilio pagão .
Pontes metafóricas entre corações que abrigam o medo do desconhecido e das mudanças da primavera pra vida adulta. É uma estória sem fio narrativo claro, sobre percepções fantasmagoricas da natureza e pessoas,sonhos que atribulam almas. Diria quase um conto de fadas realista ,João e Maria que encontram em Volborg,a bruxa que os enfeitiça para longe ...
Suas estórias sempre me dão uma reação mental,fico a pensar nisto por horas após a leitura.
Pontes metafóricas entre corações que abrigam o medo do desconhecido e das mudanças da primavera pra vida adulta. É uma estória sem fio narrativo claro, sobre percepções fantasmagoricas da natureza e pessoas,sonhos que atribulam almas. Diria quase um conto de fadas realista ,João e Maria que encontram em Volborg,a bruxa que os enfeitiça para longe ...
Suas estórias sempre me dão uma reação mental,fico a pensar nisto por horas após a leitura.
February 13, 2020
Torvil and Aud live in neighbouring houses and have been close friends all their lives. They are eighteen at the time of the book, but both still quite innocent and immature. An upsetting discovery in the woods behind their houses and subsequent meetings with another eighteen-year-old, Valborg, upsets their equilibrium.
This is an atmospheric, well written book, but the teenagers' tendency to not quite hold a conversation about anything became irritating after a while, so I was pleased the book was no longer.
This is an atmospheric, well written book, but the teenagers' tendency to not quite hold a conversation about anything became irritating after a while, so I was pleased the book was no longer.
March 8, 2025
(read in French under the title “Les Ponts� and translated by Jean-Baptiste Coursaud)
Aud and Torvil have lived all their lives together, in a world of their own, which outsiders find impossible to penetrate. But as they both reach the age of 18, their dynamics are tainted by a sexual awakening they cannot name. That is until, one summer, a macabre discovery threatens their bond.
As I experienced with “The Ice Palace�, Tarjei Vesaas is a writer who uses nature to express what can’t be named. His descriptions are so subtle in their beauty, that when I think of his work, it appears in my mind as my own memories, rather than lines from a book.
Aud and Torvil have lived all their lives together, in a world of their own, which outsiders find impossible to penetrate. But as they both reach the age of 18, their dynamics are tainted by a sexual awakening they cannot name. That is until, one summer, a macabre discovery threatens their bond.
As I experienced with “The Ice Palace�, Tarjei Vesaas is a writer who uses nature to express what can’t be named. His descriptions are so subtle in their beauty, that when I think of his work, it appears in my mind as my own memories, rather than lines from a book.
July 11, 2018
I found a hardback copy of this among my books and realized I'd never read it.
Almost put it in the "Donation" pile but read the first few pages and was hooked until I finished.
Strangely hypnotic. The characters pull you into their world and it is a thoughtful one.
the written imagery of bridge spans and the world of trees and roads is poetry.
Made me want to read The Birds next.
Almost put it in the "Donation" pile but read the first few pages and was hooked until I finished.
Strangely hypnotic. The characters pull you into their world and it is a thoughtful one.
the written imagery of bridge spans and the world of trees and roads is poetry.
Made me want to read The Birds next.
August 2, 2022
.5
Chapter-long descriptions of landscapes moving and changing while no one watches are great and sinister as in the ice palace, but here the story sags, with a sense that it's going to get somewhere and it doesn't, and the dialogue isn't mysterious and bare and strange as maybe was intended, it's just silly. Does smell a bit of bad translation.
Chapter-long descriptions of landscapes moving and changing while no one watches are great and sinister as in the ice palace, but here the story sags, with a sense that it's going to get somewhere and it doesn't, and the dialogue isn't mysterious and bare and strange as maybe was intended, it's just silly. Does smell a bit of bad translation.
October 28, 2024
En ganske mørk roman om bruer mellom mennesker. Handler om tre ungdommer som knyttes sammen av en grufull hendelse.
Det tok meg litt tid å venne meg til språket, men Vesaas skriver med en nerve som er få forunt. Vanskelig å legge fra seg.
Det tok meg litt tid å venne meg til språket, men Vesaas skriver med en nerve som er få forunt. Vanskelig å legge fra seg.
November 22, 2018
He kind of goes off the deep end in this one with the cryptic passages of ethereal interior musings. My least favorite by him by a long shot.
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