Melancholy I-IIÂ is a fictional invocation of the nineteenth-century Norwegian artist Lars Hertervig, who painted luminous landscapes, suffered mental illness and died poor in 1902. In this wild, feverish narrative, Jon Fosse delves into Hertervigâ s mind as the events of one day precipitate his mental breakdown. A student of Hans Gude at the Academy of Art in D sseldorf, Hertervig is paralyzed by anxieties about his talent and is overcome with love for Helene Winckelmann, his landladyâ s daughter.
Marked by inspiring lyrical flights of passion and enraged sexual delusions, Hertervigâ s fixation on Helene persuades her family that he must leave. Oppressed by hallucinations and with nowhere to go, Hertervig shuttles between a cafe, where he endures the mockery of his more sophisticated classmates, and the Winckelmannâ s apartment, which he desperately tries to re-enter â a limbo state which leads him inexorably into a state of madness. Published here in one volume in English for the first time, Melancholy I-II is a major novel by â the Beckett of the twenty-first centuryâ (Le Monde).
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