[ book tip by Hannah Geismar ] Erlend is a 25 year-old Norwegian guy who has somehow wandered a little off track in life. He doesn't really know where he's going and nothing seem to excite him anymore.

When his brother goes abroad for two months and lets Erlend borrow his apartment in the meantime, Erlend decides to use the two months to figure out what's bothering him. He gives up his own apartment, stops university, sells his books. All that's left to do is get better.

Chances are that if he had chosen to seek professional help, someone would have diagnosed him with a mild depression. But there are no doctors involved in this book, only a scientist called Paul Davies, whose complicated theories and thoughts fail to provide the answers Erlend is looking for: The fact that time is not really time is not something that you necessarily want to deal with, if you're not feeling very well...

Little by little, Erlend's two-month homemade therapy session becomes a quest for enthusiasm. How exactly did he lose the enthusiasm he had as a child, when simple things like riding a green bike could rock his world? Somehow he starts making lists. Lists of stuff. Stuff he has (friends, family, a cool bike etc) and stuff that he would like to have (a girlfriend, enthusiasm, a nice watch etc). Then he makes a list of things that made him happy as a child, and it becomes a logical next step to see if some of those things can still make him happy as a grown-up: Riding in elevators, playing with a red ball for hours etc. Erlend goes about his self-invented enthusiasm research project with dedication and ends up with at least some of the things on the list of stuff he would like to have. His methods might not qualify as being scientific, but they are definitely worth considering.

Naive. Super. is a simple book on potentially very complicated things. But most of all, it's one of those books that you will never regret having picked up.

Available in Frenchs as Naif.Super., Editions 10x18, 2005.

[ book info ] Loe, Erlend: Naive. Super.. Canongate Books Ltd, 2005 .