Tynset (Swiss Literature Series) - Softcover

"An opaquely powerful work about obsession, delusion, repression, and guilt." -Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review

Tynset takes place during a sleepless night, but as the work unfolds it becomes apparent that the circumstances of the immediate present serve merely as points of departure. Plagued by incessant rumination, the narrator’s restless mind spins thread after thread of thought, fantasy, and memory into an elaborate tapestry spanning centuries and covering thousands of miles—all without the narrator ever leaving his house. Hildesheimer famously refused to describeTynset as a novel; instead, he chose to think of the work as an extended monologue whose structure derives from the musical rondo form, with the recurrence of the titular Norwegian town functioning as a refrain.