Buzz Aldrin, What Happened to You in All the Confusion? [Hardcover]

No, not a biography of the astronaut, but a novel by a Norwegian. No, not another Scandinavian crime novel, but a beautifully-expressed story of a misfit. I found parallels in this work with the previous novel I'd read, 'David Copperfield'. It's narrated by Mattias, a native of Stavanger, from his teenage years to his middle age, though it
concentrates mainly on his last days at school up to his early thirties and begins when he's 29, using occasional flashbacks.

If you find the early pages a little daunting, as I did, persevere. It wasn't long before I was hooked. Mattias has a distinct voice which runs to extremes. Like Dickens, Mattias often narrates in very long sentences, piling clause upon clause to make his point. Sometimes, however, he talks in clusters of very short one line paragraphs that look like verse on the page. Both are carried off superbly. He is prone to pondering cosmic 'what ifs', the kind of person who would be interested in the question, 'If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there, does it make a sound?' His hero is Aldrin because he was the man who worked quietly in the background while his colleague, Neil Armstrong, took the fame for being the first man on the moon. Mattias wants to be that kind of person; a gifted singer, he turns down the chance of fame to be a gardener.

If all this sounds mundane, however, it isn't. Mattias is the misfit who loses control from time to time, leading to conflict and adventure. Between a boat trip to the Faeroes with friends and his waking up there alone, he loses a piece of his memory. It's a book of mysteries and people with secrets to hide; it's a book that juxtaposes global events with everyday living; it's a book in which popular music plays a part. The themes are mainly of loneliness and isolation, but there is also a great deal of love. There is always a sense of insecurity too. Harstad's evocation of life on the Faeroes is so wonderful, I almost felt I was there at times.

I have only one minor gripe: the translation is geared toward Americans. I can accept spellings like 'mold', but I can do without the dreaded 'gotten'. It's bad enough that Americans use it without infecting European works with it too. Even so, this is one of my favourite novels of any era.

Mattias doesn't want to be noticed. He wants to be the guy in the 37th car you pass on your way to work. He want to be a cog in the system

He could just as easily be the guy you see every day on the train, minding his own business reading his book or paper or whatever. You don't know him. You don't know anything about him except what you can see in front of you. You don't know where he's been, what he's done, why, who he's loved, who's loved him, what he's good at.

Mattias is good at gardening. He can also sing - better than anyone you've heard probably - but he doesn't want to do that because then he'll be noticed. Just like when he was at school... and look how that turned out.

I noticed his book because of it's curious title. I bought the book because the introduction intrigued me. 'A guy wakes up lying in the rain on a road in the Faroe Islands. He doesn't know how he got there'. OK, so how, why etc etc.

Because I did't read the introduction on Amazon thoroughly (I like the story to unfold without me having any preconcpetions of where it is going - you won't find spoilers here!) the story did not go where I was expecting at all. But I was absolutely drawn in.

Many have said that the first few pages were tough going. I actually loved the first part (as with all other parts of the book, named after a Cardigans album). The story of Mattias ends up in the Faroes is the first place is wonderful portrait of the everyman, the nowhere-man, the nobody. I'd say that almost anyone will be able to relate to Mattias in some way, you either empathise with him through shared experiences or you knew someone like him. He was a nice guy - not perfect, not always nice, but nice - quiet but nice. The story of his life up to this point is brilliant in it's normality - the picture painted beautifully and you geniunely feel for Mattias.

I was concerned, however, when the story got to he Faroes. I was not expecting the direction in which the story was taken, but the characters are painted so vividly you are drawn into their world and everything seems so normal - almost. Mattias may be the lead in the story, but best supporting role must go to the Faroes themselves. I found myself looking up the places on Google Earth and Wikipedia because I wanted to see these places for real that I was being drawn to imagine. They are what I saw in my mind - Harstad had transported me right there.

I should not have been concerned. What unfolds is a beautiful story. Every so often you feel that the author could have taken an easy turn and the plot would have become predictable, but it never goes that way. The pace remains slow adding to the realism, fitting the impression of Faroese life perfectly.

It's an oridinary life in which some slightly less than ordinary things happen. And it's beautifully written (and translated - the comments about it having been translated in American rather than English may be down to this being published by an American publisher... personally I didn't even notice, I was somewhere between Norway, Iceland and Shetland at the time!).

It's not a book for everyone. You won't find crime and murder and car chases and espionage... But I found myself genuinely looking forward to sitting down with Mattias to find out what was happening in his life - that oridinary life of the man who didn't want you to notice him. The man who wanted to be good at what he did, but to do something that wouldn't attract attention. The man who would let you pass and would be quite happy to be second man on the moon.

Those of us who are old enough remember when Neil Armstrong stepped onto the moon's surface and we remember that the oddly named Buzz Aldrin went down to the surface with him. If I'd been looking for a forgotten member of the crew, I'd have gone for Michael Collins who stayed on Apollo 11 while the others had all the fun, but I suppose his name is too common to resonate. Buzz Aldrin, the second man to do something stunning and amazing, is a hero for the narrator Mattias. We see very little Norwegian literature in this country and this is poles apart from Jo Nesbo and his alcoholic policeman.

Mattias would never have been the first man to step onto the moon: he likes to keep a low profile, to move unnoticed among his fellow men and women. Sadly, his girlfriend doesn't share his view of the world and her desertion sends him spiralling into a breakdown which leads him to a halfway house on the Faro islands.

The title both attracted and unnerved me. It's instantly noticeably, completely different, but is it going to be the sort of self-conscious quirkiness which soon palls? For some reason, I put off reading it for ages but I needn't have worried. It draws you in to Mattias's strange world. It's beautifully written, even allowing for the fact that it's been translated from the Norwegian.

It has stayed with me since I finished it.