The Birds

“Tarjei Vesaas has written the best Norwegian novel ever, The Birds—it is absolutely wonderful, the prose is so simple and so subtle, and the story is so moving that it would have been counted amongst the great classics from the last century if it had been written in one of the major languages.” —Karl Ove Knausgaard, author of My Struggle, in the New York Times Book Review

“[The Birds] has a freshness that can only be due to its timeless subject matter . . . From the first page, this novel grips us with an acutely sensitive rendition of a mentally handicapped man's inner world.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Mattis, the protagonist of . . . The Birds, surely deserves a place among the cadre of unforgettable characters in modern literature . . . Vesaas’s prose, spare and straightforward, soars with a poignancy of feeling . . . Mattis’s disability is the pivot upon which the novel unfolds and also serves to amplify the ways that “normal” people, too, are “handicapped.” Vesaas allows us see that without Mattis’s sensitivity, perceptivity, and honesty, we, too, are impaired, limited from living a full life.” —Lori Feathers, World Literature Today

“Masterful . . . profound.” —Rain Taxi Review of Books

“...an under-appreciated work of genius.” —The National Book Review

“Archipelago’s recent edition of The Birds (1957), one of Vesaas’s masterpieces, is an excellent opportunity for English readers to become acquainted with his work.” —Reading in Translation

“True visionary power.” —Sunday Telegraph

“A spare, icily humane story . . . The character of Mattis, absurd and boastful, but also sweet, pathetic and even funny, is shown with great insight. The translation conveys successfully a concetration of style and feeling that seems to be Vesaas’ characteristic mark as a novelist.” —Sunday Times

“Beautiful and subtle.” —Scotsman

“The Birds is a true literary masterpiece—most likely one of the most beautifully haunting novels you will ever read.” —Nordic Bookblog

“The inexplicable thoughts that recur to Mattis will do so to readers as well, long after the book has ended.” —Hannah Sheldon-Dean, Bookslut

“Disarmingly insightful . . . Vesaas conveys subtle emotional rhythms with masterful economy.” —Tablet

“A masterpiece.” —Literary Review

“A powerful book, [The Birds] wounds you . . . Its complexity is rendered with the simplicity of poetic beauty that only a true poet such as Vesaas could pull off. I guarantee you, you will never recover.” —Chris Via of Leaf by Leaf

“A sad but gorgeous novel about the difficulty of communicating with one another and the hurdles that intellectually disabled individuals have to grapple with.”
–– Radhika Pandit, Radhika’s Reading Retreat