Armand V.

This novel consists of nothing but the author’s footnotes to a novel that has not been written, and its main character is Armand V. In the mid-1960s Armand and his closest friend, Paul Buer, who grew up in the same town on the west side of the Oslofjord, arrive in Oslo to study at the university at Blindern. Paul goes to the natural sciences and becomes a meteorologist; Armand reads philology, and the radical opponent of the EEC goes on to a career as a diplomat and ambassador in the world’s great cities. He plays the role of ever-loyal envoy with a certain distance: faithful to his country on the outside, he is inwardly a disloyal servant.

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form

Novel

Length

236 pages in the original

Genres

Politics (assigned by AI)

Set in

Norway

First published

2006 by Oktober

Author's age

65 when first published

ISBN

9788249504206 (original)

9780811226288 (New Directions, United States)

9781784708467 (Vintage, United Kingdom)