Naive.Super Reivew
January 1st, 2006 . by Jilly
Naive.Super, by Norwegian author Erlend Loe, was our book club choice of December. Our 3 month theme has been crazy people that aren’t that crazy. I really enjoyed this book and hope to find more works by this author in the future.
The narrator of our story is a 25 year old guy, that’s recently hitten a wall. I think they call this the quarter-life crisis. He’s feeling anxiety about life, he’s not sure what the point of everything is, he doesn’t have the feeling that everything will be okay in the end. He decides that until he can figure everything out he’s gonna start making lists. Lists of things that make him happy, things that he liked when he was a kid, things that he has, things that he wants.
The character is really likable. He becomes obsessed by time and whether it actually matters. He yearns to get to the bottom of life and how best to live it. Part of this book takes place in Norway and the other half our main character has a vacation in New York. This book is really simple, a little odd, and funny here and there. Sometimes I think I just need to sit there with the hammer and nail like our main character.
This book was a quick read, it has a big font with big margins. I really liked this book. If you haven’t read this book, pick it up. It’s well worth the 3 hours it’ll take to read.
I really enjoyed this book. There’s a constant self-reflection. The way you deal with change, with growing up and growing old. Yes, all this analysis in 3 hours.
The narrator makes you feel like your freedom is restricted to a small duration. The way he simplifies and quantifies everything i think compounds this reality even more. His obsessions and constant lists, this kind of narcissism i think reflects the overwhelming choices this generation is consumed with.
I love how he invites his brother to hammer blocks into the child’s play table along with him. Here’s another way we can let out some steam with our siblings.
In a way i think the narrator or Loe speak the truth about people trying to deal with their obsessions, with themselves, their decisions and their narcissism. While others deal with these issues through addictions of one sort or the other, the narrator tries to figure this all out in his head. I thought this was pretty courageous.
I really like this book, too. Like Anna said, it is a constant self-reflection. As soon as you’re done reading it, you want to make a list of something.
The minimalism of ‘Naive.Super’ in a way reminded me of ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time’ by Mark Haddon. The main character’s thoughts were incredibly simple and well thought out. I loved how Loe followed the reader thru every decition with lists. I liked the ‘animals you’ve seen list’ and how Erlend became friends with the neighbor boy(I forgot his name).
I started thinking about things that I used to enjoy as a child but don’t do now. Like climbing a tree or being burried in sand at the beach.