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the complete review - fiction

Self-Control

by
Stig Sæterbakken

general information | review summaries | our review | links | about the author

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Our Assessment:

B+ : well done

See our review for fuller assessment.

  From the Reviews:

• "It's not so much that nothing happens in the novel, it's that the things that do happen never threaten to build towards anything like a plot. What tension there is, and what propulsion you feel as a reader, are negative energies: they come from the suppression of information. (...) Andreas's reticence is pervasive, and his narrative is resolutely devoid of any sense of past or future. Only in the novel's closing lines are we given an idea of what this trauma might be, and there is an immediate compulsion to go back and reread this brief book. Saeterbakken's writing is unyieldingly intense and sometimes dismally funny. The prose, in Sean Kinsella's English translation, is direct and starkly unlyrical, if weakened occasionally by cliche. " - Mark O'Connell, The Observer
  
  
• "Connection is here something both yearned for and guarded against. Andreas is endlessly anxious that others will somehow connect with him against his will, that the self-control by which he maintains his dignified isolation from the world might lapse. (...) There are darkly humorous moments in Self-Control, but the invective is rarely counter-pointed by the glimmerings of flawed divinity that are evident in the treatment of man's absurdity by, say, Samuel Beckett or Franz Kafka. (...) Yet, just as one is preparing to condemn Saeterbakken for his narrow register, the book's surprising and (to my mind) ambiguous ending complicates and deepens the reader's understanding of everything that has preceded it. " - Benjamin Eastham, Times Literary Supplement

Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure.

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The complete review's Review:

       Self-Control is narrated by Andreas Feldt, and opens with him describing a recent meeting with one of his daughters, Marit, whom he hasn't seen in ages. She lives fairly near to him, but they never bump into each other -- likely because, as he explains, he is easily avoidable, as his paths and routine are predictable: "because it was extremely unlikely that I ... if at all in the past year ... had deviated from my regular daily route through the city". His routines give him a hold: arriving at his workplace and starting everything up is one of these, filling him: "with that sensation of pleasure and peace which every morning makes me feel I belong to a world over which I am in complete control".
       As the title of the novel suggests, control is something that is important to him and something he latches and holds onto -- but, much as he tries and much as he tries to convince himself otherwise, his hold is much less secure than he'd like.
       Throughout, Andreas describes events closely, including incidental things that catch his attention or distract him; among them is the news of the disappearance and search for a missing teenage girl, which pops up several times in his account. His daughter just wants some money from him, but in the course of their conversation he blurts out that he and wife Helene -- Marit's mother -- are getting divorced -- an idea that had never even occurred to him. It is a "spontaneous lie", and his daughter doesn't even really react to it -- likely, he thinks, not believing it anyway -- but it seems to be the trigger which upsets what is, in fact, Andreas' very delicately balanced life.
       Much of his account of the time that follows involves interactions with others that are both intimate and yet at a certain distance; a failure (or inability) to truly communicate and connect -- a meeting of minds -- is one of the common elements. At work, he aggressively confronts his boss -- yet that too is a conversation that is simply elided over in their next interactions. A dinner with an old school friend and his wife -- again, part of a routine: "their monthly visit" -- finds him unable and unwilling to go along with his old friend's usual patter -- and so, for example, when his friend tries to explain something he resists understanding:

     It gradually began to dawn on me, but I almost didn't want it to become clear, just out of pure obstinacy ... it was almost as though I preferred persisting in my ignorance at least a little while longer, if for no other reason than to put a spoke in the wheel of Hans-Jacob's carefully planned coronation: I tried to remain as expressionless as possible.

- M.A.Orthofer, 17 May 2026

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Links:

• Dalkey Archive Press publicity page
• Cappelen Damm publicity page
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• Excerpt

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• Don't Leave Me
• Invisible Hands
• Siamese
• Through the Night

• See Index of Scandinavian literature
• Other books from Dalkey Archive Press under review

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About the Author:

       Norwegian author Stig Sæterbakken lived 1966 to 2012.

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© 2026 the complete review

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