Restless

Winner of Tarjei Vesaas debutant award

Full English translation available

A young man writes a letter to the woman who rejected him.

Driven by doubt and unbridled desire, he tries to write himself to a new understanding of his loneliness.

At the same time, he suspects literature is to blame for all of this.

He therefore dreams of literature that cures the need for literature, literature where life has precedence.

Restless is a disobedient short novel, narrated by aphorisms and small episodes of everyday life, conveyed by a presence and an intensity that never folds back to a personal darkness.

Restless also contains remains of an almost extinct classic ideal. At least hope: Books can make us better people.

 

“I only have one book in me, after all. It’s called “How I Learned to Love,” and I hope to write it over and over again, with little variations until I die. “

 

An appealing literary project

Aftenbladet, Norway 5/6

Hits the spot without mercy, and is sometimes hilarious (...) there is sincerness, fragility, meaningfulness and real insight (...) Moes's precise language and the appealing narrative of the book made me read on

Littkritikk, Norway

Kenneth Moe is not afraid to show he has a conscious relationship with literature and its main topics: love, loneliness and yes, in fact, the meaning of life (...) Kenneth Moes Restless is, in addition to the fact Pelikanen Forlag get nominated to the Tarjei Vesaas award, impressive and sensational

Deichman.no, Norway

Restless enlightens the long process of grief, despair, soul-searching and anger following a break up (...) The descriptions are well formulated and recognizable, the protagonist is just the right mixture of desperate, heartbreaking and pathetic only a forfeited lover can be (...) The authentic impression of the novel signalizes this is a successful piece of literature, a readable representation of a despair humans have known from the invention of the love letter.

En millionmeter, Norway

The award winner of the year impresses with philosophical and recognizable prose. Through concise and persistent fragments, the author investigates a young man's loneliness, self-pity and depression, desire and love. In this existential zero point, literature becomes both the rescue and the obstacle.

The union of the banal and the solemn, the viscious and the well read turns "Restless" into a peculiar and contradictory work, which, despite its scarcely hundred pages, is perceived as uncommonly contentious.

Tarjei Vesaas Debut award jury

Short but comprehensive

VG, Norway

The book delivers a self-conscious, melancholic, intelligent, disobedient and broken mindset of aphoric sentences. The book conceals both poetry and philosophical objections, which encourages the reader to consume the words with silverware instead of engulfing the book.

Tønsberg Blad, Norway

The author Kenneth Moe depicts the timelessness from the heart's point of view by means of a lyrical language while keeping the romantic ideals. At the same time, Kenneth Moe gives men today literature to recognize in, as Knausgård does. This book deserves to be read.

Kristiansands avis, Norway

I admire this book a lot (...) The overwhelming majority of the work I see feels to me as if it were written in the mid-19th century. The best work, from any era, always feels shockingly contemporary. This is true of RESTLESS. There is, for me, no higher praise.

David Shields, author

Kenneth has a strong awareness of form; he’s also stubborn and possesses a completely original literary voice. We’re sure that Restless will be the first of many books in a promising career.

Karl Ove Knausgård, author

A rare example of what intelligence, irony, tenderness do to a man and his novel! „Restless“ shows us the contemporary way to tell a love story.

Jessica Beer, editor, Residenz Verlag

If Houellebecq opted for a miniature, it might be something like this.

Netgalley, UK

The story of a young man who only understands the “strange starting point” of their relationship in retrospect.

Mona Lisa Blog, Germany

A playful piece of prose from Norway. A talent.

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