Naive. Super by Erlend Loe Review

Back in 2006 or so Amazon had this “Listmania” feature where, youse guessed it, people made lists of stuff to share with others. I’d waste way too much time browsing those lists but I’d get recs for some pretty decent books to read that were similar to books I’d read before. One such book that appeared a lot was Erlend Loe’s Naive. Super, which I read a few pages of and decided wasn’t for me. Cut to the other week, some 10+ years after that encounter, when I happened to see it on a bookshelf and decided, what the hey, I’ll finally read it cover to cover. Mebbe I was wrong? Nope, my instincts was right the first time because this novel suuuuucked!

A boring Norwegian twentysomething, who’s probably on the autism spectrum, had a meltdown and dropped out of college. Now he hangs around an apartment bouncing a ball, repeatedly hammering pegs and making inane lists (hey, like Amazon’s Listmania!). About halfway through his brother gets him to fly out to visit him in America and he makes lists in America. The end.

Whaaat? I know it wasn’t entertaining so was this pigslop meant to be deep and profound? Because it weren’t! The guy is also obsessed with this scientist who writes about space and bangs on about space trivia, so maybe it was trying for a pseudo-philosophical angle, but it completely failed.

And then there’s the pages of rubbish like the printouts of mid-90s library catalogue searches with Norwegian swears - was that meant to be funny? Or just to highlight the main character’s probable autism by showing how he scrapbooks his life in an OCD way like the main character of Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time? It wasn’t funny, it seemed pointless - it was just another aspect of the book that went way over my head or had no meaning anyway. And you can tell it’s the ‘90s too as everyone faxes each other instead of texting/emailing. Nothing worthwhile either so humans have remained boring idiots whatever technology we’re playing with!

Nowt happens in Naive. Super and it’s a total crapwad novel. I’d say this was a case of style over substance but - what style?