
By Kyrre Andreassen
Me, who wasn’t even interested in the pergola. Not even a bit. It was Marianne, she thought it’d look majestic to have a pergola in the garden. The idea barged its way out after a…
Me, who wasn’t even interested in the pergola. Not even a bit. It was Marianne, she thought it’d look majestic to have a pergola in the garden. The idea barged its way out after a trip to Rome, a long weekend at Easter, when we happened to eat at a restaurant down there called La Pergola – that’s where she got the idea. I’d barely managed to lug our suitcases into the house before she was in full swing outside inspecting the lawn. She stood there, waving her arms and giving directions. The snow hadn’t even melted yet.
Can you picture it? said Marianne; but just because you’ve sat on a pavement in Rome with all kinds of hanging plants dangling about your ears, gorging on fine food and wine with the whole of antiquity shoved up in your face, that doesn’t mean you’re necessarily going to get the same feeling of affluence from having a few planks thrown up between your house and your garage.
By giving a voice to electrician Krister Larsen, Andreassen draws an intricate portrait of a main character, who breaks a long row of stereotypes. In a similar way, he revives words and expressions that would otherwise seem like archaic sayings […] A quirky and at times sardonic presentation of the Norwegian man in crisis, chronicled as a monologue by slipped-disc sufferer and electrician Krister Larsen who, after a stint of unemployment, is given the task of teaching Norwegian to foreigners. A joyous reunion after a ten-year absence with an outstanding novelist.
DagbladetA tremendously well-constructed monologue composed in perfect pitch. Intelligent. Like a vulnerable, angry, tender man, who stands alone, outside of the mainstream.
Best books of 2016, KlassekampenThere are many ways of evaluating the importance of a novel, but one parameter is whether it tells us something new that cannot be displayed in any other way. And when considered in this way, Kyrre Andreassen’s new novel scores ten out of ten.
Dagens NæringslivI do not know many authors here in Norway who would be able to pull off a linguistically driven project as Andreassen does in Furthermore, I Consider That Carthage Must Be Destroyed. [...] This book is entertaining, really funny in fact, but also brutal. The brilliance of the novel - nothing less – lies within the cool but elegant transition to something darker, the more threatening and irrational aspects of the cheerful chatterbox from Drammen.
NRKKrister Larsen is an electrician who takes great pride in his work, despite suffering from massive back pains. He is married to Marianne and they have a son, Andreas, who is 11. Krister is not happy. His son is having trouble at school. His wife is obsessed with building a pergola in the garden. And then there is Yvonne, a woman whom he is extremely attracted to, in spite of his vehement denials to himself and others. Krister is a regular guy with all the contradictions that that entails: sensitive yet bullying, a common man, but also a reader, a thinker, and a bodybuilder. Furthermore, I Consider That Carthage Must Be Destroyed is a novel about love, anger management and getting paid under the table. Krister is the voice of Kyrre Andreassen’s new novel, his first since Svendsen’s Catering in 2006.
Foreign sales:
Denmark, Gyldendal