I had heard of this book on Twitter and it happened to be in my library's e-books.

These are contemporary short stories from Norway and Europe (vacation). What interests me is the style being so entrenched in limited third person, and so reminiscent of Hemingway/Ingmar Bergman in austerity of tone and in the deceptive, superficial simplicity. One early story of two men meeting by chance in a park over and over reminded me of that kind of profound extremis in Knut Hamsun's Hunger. There's always something off, intriguing, and depressing. The pleasure in the book, for me, is that I often have this uncanny feeling that I'm reading something from the late 19th century but I know it's from today: feeling the revision of the present into something so clear and matter of fact and spare, without any quotidian little phrases is like looking at an abstract painting of a figurative scene--except that it moves.

If the book continues to be about loveless couples in awkward, tense scenarios, though, I'm going to bail.

This was my introduction to Askildsen. To the subtlety of language, situations, and to how people react. Askildsen’s short stories are seemingly calm but there’s so much going on under the safe. The characters are forever in a limbo, left to their own device, with nothing or no one in sight.

Whether it is tales of marital unhappiness, conflicts between parent and child, or the struggles of the elderly, Askildsen’s stories are all about everyday despair and life as it goes on. His spaces are ordinary – the kitchen, the park, the drawing room, a movie theatre, restaurants, and bars – where relationships begin, end, or are simply compromised on.

Nothing of significance is happening, even to the characters it doesn’t seem that way. There is however an understated longing for what is not known, love for what is not around, and solitude that is not needed.

Askildsen’s writing is simple and plain. These stories are more vignettes. They don’t run into pages and yet say so much. They also range from morose and bleak to the comic. For instance, the funny side of a son visiting his father to understand their relationship better or the title story that is of a marriage – real, tragic, and funny. The stories are a treat, to be savoured slowly. The translation by Seán Kinsella leaves so much to the imagination, I guess just how the author intends it to be. Everything Like Before is a fantastic collection of thirty dozen stories that range across the spectrum of emotions and make you want more of them.

Best taken in small doses.

These stories are wonderfully and beautifully written. Rather haunting and strange overall, and quite sad at times. But I feel they will stick with me a long time: they’re the type of stories that pop back into your head at odd times, that leave you with such a particular feeling, and make you wonder at the connections between them.

“how could I know things weren’t as they should be, with walls covered in God and shelves filled with Him, making atonement behind the locked door or the broom cupboard, the galoshes abs the umbrellas…”