What do you think?
Rate this book
Siamese
A brutally comic portrait of marriage, taken to extremes reminiscent of the work of Samuel Beckett and Thomas Bernhard. Edwin Mortens is almost blind, but has good hearing; his wife Erna is hard of hearing, but has excellent eyes. Paralyzed from the waist down, Edwin sits locked in his bathroom all day, every day, trying to liberate his mind from his body. The experiment is going relatively well: nearly all his bodily functions have ceased, his limbs are in a state of decay, and his digestive system is in the process of breaking down. “This body,” he says, “is a sewer.”
To pass the time, Edwin dedicates his days to chewing gum and screaming at his wife, on whom he is, nonetheless, entirely dependent; while Erna’s life, despite Edwin’s constant abuse, revolves around her hideous husband. Edwin and Erna live in a state of perfect equilibrium—fueled by habit, cruelty, humiliation, and quite possibly love—until a young maintenance man is called to replace a lightbulb in Edwin’s bathroom, and the “Siamese twins” find themselves embroiled in a new and vicious struggle for power.
To pass the time, Edwin dedicates his days to chewing gum and screaming at his wife, on whom he is, nonetheless, entirely dependent; while Erna’s life, despite Edwin’s constant abuse, revolves around her hideous husband. Edwin and Erna live in a state of perfect equilibrium—fueled by habit, cruelty, humiliation, and quite possibly love—until a young maintenance man is called to replace a lightbulb in Edwin’s bathroom, and the “Siamese twins” find themselves embroiled in a new and vicious struggle for power.
164 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1997
14 people are currently reading
897 people want to read
About the author
Stig Sæterbakken
48 books66 followersStig Sæterbakken was a Norwegian author. He published his first book at the age of 18, a collection of poems called Floating Umbrellas, while still attending Lillehammer Senior High School. In 1991, Sæterbakken released his first novel, Incubus, followed by The New Testament in 1993. Aestethic Bliss (1994) collected five years of work as an essayist.
Sæterbakken returned to prose in 1997 with the novel Siamese, which marks a significant departure in his style. The following year saw the release of Self-Control. And in 1999, he published Sauermugg. The three books, the S-trilogy—as they are often called—were published in a collected edition in 2000.
In February 2001, Sæterbakken's second collection of essays, The Evil Eye was released. As with Aestethic Bliss this book also represents a summing up and a closing of a new phase in the authorship. In many ways the essays throw light on Sæterbakken's own prose over the last years, the S-trilogy in particular.
Siamese was released in Sweden by Vertigo. Vertigo followed up with a translation of Sauermugg in April 2007. This edition, however, was different from the Norwegian original. It included some of the later published Sauermugg-monologues, together with left overs from the time the book was written, about 50 pages of new material all together. The expanded edition was entitled Sauermugg Redux. Siamese has since been translated into Danish, Czech and English.
Sæterbakken's last books were the novels The Visit, Invisible Hands, and Don't Leave Me. He was awarded the Osloprisen (Oslo Prize) in 2006 for The Visit. Invisible Hands was nominated for both the P2-listener's Novel prize and Youth's Critics' Prize in 2007. The same year he was awarded the Critics Prize and Bokklubbene's Translationprize for his translation of Nikanor Teratologen's Eldreomsorgen i Øvre Kågedalen.
Sæterbakken was artistic director of The Norwegian Festival of Literature from 2006 until October 2008, when he resigned owing to the controversy which arose when David Irving was invited to the festival in 2009.
Sæterbakken's books were released and translated in several countries, among them Russia and US. April 2009 Flamme Forlag released an essay by Sæterbakken, in their series of book-singles, called Yes. No. Yes.
Sæterbakken committed suicide on January 24, 2012, aged 46.
Sæterbakken returned to prose in 1997 with the novel Siamese, which marks a significant departure in his style. The following year saw the release of Self-Control. And in 1999, he published Sauermugg. The three books, the S-trilogy—as they are often called—were published in a collected edition in 2000.
In February 2001, Sæterbakken's second collection of essays, The Evil Eye was released. As with Aestethic Bliss this book also represents a summing up and a closing of a new phase in the authorship. In many ways the essays throw light on Sæterbakken's own prose over the last years, the S-trilogy in particular.
Siamese was released in Sweden by Vertigo. Vertigo followed up with a translation of Sauermugg in April 2007. This edition, however, was different from the Norwegian original. It included some of the later published Sauermugg-monologues, together with left overs from the time the book was written, about 50 pages of new material all together. The expanded edition was entitled Sauermugg Redux. Siamese has since been translated into Danish, Czech and English.
Sæterbakken's last books were the novels The Visit, Invisible Hands, and Don't Leave Me. He was awarded the Osloprisen (Oslo Prize) in 2006 for The Visit. Invisible Hands was nominated for both the P2-listener's Novel prize and Youth's Critics' Prize in 2007. The same year he was awarded the Critics Prize and Bokklubbene's Translationprize for his translation of Nikanor Teratologen's Eldreomsorgen i Øvre Kågedalen.
Sæterbakken was artistic director of The Norwegian Festival of Literature from 2006 until October 2008, when he resigned owing to the controversy which arose when David Irving was invited to the festival in 2009.
Sæterbakken's books were released and translated in several countries, among them Russia and US. April 2009 Flamme Forlag released an essay by Sæterbakken, in their series of book-singles, called Yes. No. Yes.
Sæterbakken committed suicide on January 24, 2012, aged 46.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 72 reviews
August 26, 2015
This is the ugliest and most hateful book I’ve ever read. It’s a grotesque examination of the darkness inside us and a bizarre example of severe codependency. Siamese was an uncomfortable, yet strangely readable piece of fiction. Sadly, we may not be as far removed from these disgusting creatures as we think we are.
April 21, 2021
Repugnante, sombrío, claustrofóbico y perturbador.
June 7, 2011
In love with the idea of this novel. So in love with the idea, in fact, that the novel as it was actually executed often was at war with the novel I was writing in my head as I read. Do you ever do this?
This novel hits a sweet spot for me. Edwin's self-denial reminds me somewhat of Kafka's "The Hunger Artist." I started thinking of Edwin as the "solipsism artist" and initially read the novel through a very metaphysical lens. I was reminded of the invalid Malone from Beckett's Malone Dies who is so decrepit he's almost nothing but a voice. And Siamese participates in the long and noble tradition of the rant: from Dostoyevsky to Bernhard. Saeterbakken's got it going on, in myriad ways.
Bernhard, however, has more control. Bernhard can be hyperbolic without being over the top. Saeterbakken sometimes loses the reins on his characters. Erna says things that don't sound like an old lady, that sound more like an intruding Saeterbakken. Edwin, though most of his monologue is fabulous and compulsive to read, lapses into cliché. But none of this stopped me from really enjoying this novel, and I wonder how much it bugged other readers.
I'm intrigued by the strange symbiotic Edwin/Erna organism. The organism has reached a kind of stasis — a feverish, soul-sucking stasis — otherwise known as marriage. There were some deeply affecting moments. I saw far too much of myself in Edwin. Because of the stasis the novel doesn't feel like it's moving at all, and that's good. That's marriage. Time moves slow, but passes quickly, and before you know it it's all over. I'll definitely read this again.
(My marriage is great by the way. Just playing along.)
This novel hits a sweet spot for me. Edwin's self-denial reminds me somewhat of Kafka's "The Hunger Artist." I started thinking of Edwin as the "solipsism artist" and initially read the novel through a very metaphysical lens. I was reminded of the invalid Malone from Beckett's Malone Dies who is so decrepit he's almost nothing but a voice. And Siamese participates in the long and noble tradition of the rant: from Dostoyevsky to Bernhard. Saeterbakken's got it going on, in myriad ways.
Bernhard, however, has more control. Bernhard can be hyperbolic without being over the top. Saeterbakken sometimes loses the reins on his characters. Erna says things that don't sound like an old lady, that sound more like an intruding Saeterbakken. Edwin, though most of his monologue is fabulous and compulsive to read, lapses into cliché. But none of this stopped me from really enjoying this novel, and I wonder how much it bugged other readers.
I'm intrigued by the strange symbiotic Edwin/Erna organism. The organism has reached a kind of stasis — a feverish, soul-sucking stasis — otherwise known as marriage. There were some deeply affecting moments. I saw far too much of myself in Edwin. Because of the stasis the novel doesn't feel like it's moving at all, and that's good. That's marriage. Time moves slow, but passes quickly, and before you know it it's all over. I'll definitely read this again.
(My marriage is great by the way. Just playing along.)
December 17, 2024
Siamese is a comic portrait of marriage seeped in harrowing darkness. The book illustrates its point by taking a caricature of a caricature of two individuals stuck in the trenches of a codependent relationship. At the center is a man, decaying as we read, who narrates a grotesque, hateful stream of consciousness. Siamese is a gripping, claustrophobic tale of incredible psychological fiction. Thank you to the publisher for my copy of this unsettling story!
Read
July 24, 2022Exactly How Black can Writing Get?
At first it seems Saeterbakken is mainly indebted to Beckett: the blind old man's hopeless, self-imposed situation, sitting in a chair in a bathroom for years on end while his circulation shuts down and he slowly decomposes, would not have been possible without scenes in Beckett, especially the man in 'The Unnamable' (1953) who has been sitting so long he cannot be sure he still has legs. And then it seems Saeterbakken is more indebted to Thomas Bernhard, because of the vitriol, the petty paranoia, the hatred and spite, the disgust that pours from the old man's imagination like one of his many pustulent infestations, imagined intestinal worms, scabs, psoriasis, boils, blackheads, pellet-like shit, or powerful farts.
But Saeterbakken has an imagination of his own, and it comes out in an amazing continuous invention of his characters' inner lives. The man's wife is an excellent study in emotional paralysis. I can imagine the Joyce of 'The Dubliners' enjoying the way she passively and inaccurately mulls over the many things she hasn't quite said or understood. The man himself is not just desperate or angry, because in the past he was a compulsively accurate record-keeper, and that compulsiveness has an unresolved relation to his current intermittent dementia. The usual way novelists balance irascible senility is with moments of sentiment and lucidity; those do occur here, but they don't do much work. What matters instead is the puzzle of how the middle-aged irritating micromanager chose his muddled but constant wife, and how he then became the old man in the novel.
There are a few problems that I would like to assign to Saeterbakken's age: he was only in his thirties when he wrote this. (He died by suicide when he was 46, in 2012.) First, it is often possible to tell when he is recording things he learned in hospitals and old age homes. Sudden precise details from the world of hospitals and critical care facilities take me out of the novel and remind me Saeterbakken must have kept real, or mental, notebooks in preparation for this novel. Second, there are set-piece scenes that a better novelist, like Bernhard, would have washed away in a flood of anger, nihilism, or some other driving concern. One is the first meeting between the man's wife and the superintendent of the building, which reads like a sketch by Ibsen about some claustrophobic and embarrassing domestic life. And third, the relentless inventories of the man's body are clearly intended to shock, but as Roland Barthes knew, shock quickly becomes 'shock,' which in turn becomes irritation. A purer version of this book could have done without them. And fourth, there are attempts at black humor and campy funeral-parlor jokes, like the old man's diet (Orbit chewing gum by the case, Coke, and meatballs): they also go from funny to 'funny' to irritating. Better here to follow Beckett, and let things like food be forgotten. 'Black humor' is a rum category, because it pretends it isn't serious about what it actually most serious, its ambition to be as dark as possible.
Those are flaws, because they are less than total blackness, and once blackness appears it wants to be total.
At first it seems Saeterbakken is mainly indebted to Beckett: the blind old man's hopeless, self-imposed situation, sitting in a chair in a bathroom for years on end while his circulation shuts down and he slowly decomposes, would not have been possible without scenes in Beckett, especially the man in 'The Unnamable' (1953) who has been sitting so long he cannot be sure he still has legs. And then it seems Saeterbakken is more indebted to Thomas Bernhard, because of the vitriol, the petty paranoia, the hatred and spite, the disgust that pours from the old man's imagination like one of his many pustulent infestations, imagined intestinal worms, scabs, psoriasis, boils, blackheads, pellet-like shit, or powerful farts.
But Saeterbakken has an imagination of his own, and it comes out in an amazing continuous invention of his characters' inner lives. The man's wife is an excellent study in emotional paralysis. I can imagine the Joyce of 'The Dubliners' enjoying the way she passively and inaccurately mulls over the many things she hasn't quite said or understood. The man himself is not just desperate or angry, because in the past he was a compulsively accurate record-keeper, and that compulsiveness has an unresolved relation to his current intermittent dementia. The usual way novelists balance irascible senility is with moments of sentiment and lucidity; those do occur here, but they don't do much work. What matters instead is the puzzle of how the middle-aged irritating micromanager chose his muddled but constant wife, and how he then became the old man in the novel.
There are a few problems that I would like to assign to Saeterbakken's age: he was only in his thirties when he wrote this. (He died by suicide when he was 46, in 2012.) First, it is often possible to tell when he is recording things he learned in hospitals and old age homes. Sudden precise details from the world of hospitals and critical care facilities take me out of the novel and remind me Saeterbakken must have kept real, or mental, notebooks in preparation for this novel. Second, there are set-piece scenes that a better novelist, like Bernhard, would have washed away in a flood of anger, nihilism, or some other driving concern. One is the first meeting between the man's wife and the superintendent of the building, which reads like a sketch by Ibsen about some claustrophobic and embarrassing domestic life. And third, the relentless inventories of the man's body are clearly intended to shock, but as Roland Barthes knew, shock quickly becomes 'shock,' which in turn becomes irritation. A purer version of this book could have done without them. And fourth, there are attempts at black humor and campy funeral-parlor jokes, like the old man's diet (Orbit chewing gum by the case, Coke, and meatballs): they also go from funny to 'funny' to irritating. Better here to follow Beckett, and let things like food be forgotten. 'Black humor' is a rum category, because it pretends it isn't serious about what it actually most serious, its ambition to be as dark as possible.
Those are flaws, because they are less than total blackness, and once blackness appears it wants to be total.
November 28, 2021
Uno de los libros de terror psicológico más crudos que he leído jamás.
Relata la historia de una pareja de ancianos que viven recluidos y apartados de la sociedad en su pequeño apartamento.
Él, inmovilizado casi totalmente y ceguera completa. Es un ser que se autodesprecia y que su más ferviente deseo es ver reducida su existencia a cero. Ella, con una sordera que se intensifica cada vez más. Por compasión y/o triste hábito, se encarga del cuidado de su esposo.
Juntos, en una convivencia de amor-odio, de humillación y crueldad, se ven aturdidos por una nueva presencia en sus vidas. El chico del mantenimiento que llegó a arreglar una bombilla.
La prosa es asfixiante, lenta y perturbadora. Te prepara, te prepara hasta...
"Llevó una vida tranquila, eso es innegable. Si existo o no, no es crucial para mí"
Relata la historia de una pareja de ancianos que viven recluidos y apartados de la sociedad en su pequeño apartamento.
Él, inmovilizado casi totalmente y ceguera completa. Es un ser que se autodesprecia y que su más ferviente deseo es ver reducida su existencia a cero. Ella, con una sordera que se intensifica cada vez más. Por compasión y/o triste hábito, se encarga del cuidado de su esposo.
Juntos, en una convivencia de amor-odio, de humillación y crueldad, se ven aturdidos por una nueva presencia en sus vidas. El chico del mantenimiento que llegó a arreglar una bombilla.
La prosa es asfixiante, lenta y perturbadora. Te prepara, te prepara hasta...
"Llevó una vida tranquila, eso es innegable. Si existo o no, no es crucial para mí"
June 20, 2019
Siamese is the first title in the so-called 'S-trilogy', the books of which are connected only tangentially by theme and not by any other commonalities. I'd put it off, having read the other two a few years back, suspecting based on the premise that I wouldn't enjoy it as much. Well, my instincts were correct, as I found it to be a much lesser work. This is the story of an older married couple: the man Edwin has been reduced to a blind inert mass sitting in a rocking chair in the only bathroom in the apartment, while his wife Erna half-heartedly cares for him. The book alternates between their two perspectives. There is a lot of existential dread enrobed in visceral body detail, thus earning the comparisons to Beckett, specifically the Molloy trilogy. The two characters are mostly repugnant, each in different ways, and their interactions generate a bleak portrait of marriage in old age, further compromised by one partner's debilitating illness. While there are a few gems to be found in Edwin's constant cogitative diarrhea, most of it is pretty forgettable. I recommend instead Through the Night and Self-Control as better examples of Sæterbakken's skills.
May 7, 2020
La historia de dos ancianos que viven juntos se podría contar de muchas maneras, se podría llenar el relato de melancolía, de dulzura, de calma... pero no sería una historia escrita por Sæterbakken.
Edwin y Erna viven juntos, efectivamente, tras toda una vida de matrimonio. Edwin ha perdido la visión y está inválido de cintura para abajo. Vive en una mecedora. Encerrado en el baño esperando la muerte. Su esposa apenas lo visita para darle alimento y vicio (chicles en grageas). También lo visita cuando tiene que hacer sus necesidades, como es obvio (recordemos que Edwin reside en el baño).
El libro está planteado casi como un combate de boxeo silencioso (entre ellos apenas se comunican), a través de los procesos mentales de uno y otro, tan lúcidos a veces y tan llenos de mugre y contaminación en multitud de ocasiones. Y el combate es nulo, tanto como sus propias vidas.
También la muerte. Edwin la piensa y el autor la presenta como una degradación, una muerte física que llega a repugnar de lo explícita que se nos muestra. Y tan cotidiana.
Sin duda no quedamos indemnes ante esta novela, incómoda y perturbadora porque podemos ver reflejado parte de lo que nos puede llegar a esperar.
Sæterbakken se fue prematuramente y nos privó de más infiernos en forma de letras.
Infiernos literarios magníficos.
Edwin y Erna viven juntos, efectivamente, tras toda una vida de matrimonio. Edwin ha perdido la visión y está inválido de cintura para abajo. Vive en una mecedora. Encerrado en el baño esperando la muerte. Su esposa apenas lo visita para darle alimento y vicio (chicles en grageas). También lo visita cuando tiene que hacer sus necesidades, como es obvio (recordemos que Edwin reside en el baño).
El libro está planteado casi como un combate de boxeo silencioso (entre ellos apenas se comunican), a través de los procesos mentales de uno y otro, tan lúcidos a veces y tan llenos de mugre y contaminación en multitud de ocasiones. Y el combate es nulo, tanto como sus propias vidas.
También la muerte. Edwin la piensa y el autor la presenta como una degradación, una muerte física que llega a repugnar de lo explícita que se nos muestra. Y tan cotidiana.
Sin duda no quedamos indemnes ante esta novela, incómoda y perturbadora porque podemos ver reflejado parte de lo que nos puede llegar a esperar.
Sæterbakken se fue prematuramente y nos privó de más infiernos en forma de letras.
Infiernos literarios magníficos.
November 14, 2014
Beautiful Bernhardian/Beckettian brutality. Brusque, blunt, blemished, broken, body-bilious…Brilliant.
Good review at NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/boo...
and 3:AM - http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/misera...
May 14, 2010
Edwin lives in his bathroom. A rocking chair placed within is his world, and a nearby dresser holds his cups of flat soda and boxes of Orbit gum. The floor is wrinkled with wrappers, and while he’s blind, an overhead fluorescent light illuminates his miserable existence. Once an exacting businessman, overseeing a convalescent home of deteriorating elderly people, he now sits in his own waste, deteriorating slowly as he chews gum and has conversations with Death. Screaming at Elna, his wife, is his only source of distraction from his roving thoughts.
Siamese examines the inner thoughts and outer actions of this strange pair, in the most intimate of ways. Elna is so involved in Edwin’s death (as it is he is more dead than alive) that she lacks the most basic grasp of common sense, unless it comes to deceiving Edwin. Edwin glories in his demise, cataloguing each symptom and detail with relish. It’s almost as if his decay proves that he existed in the first place, because in his constant reminiscing he often tries to analyze if he really did live. His thoughts are random, vulgar, and filled with hate. He asks himself: “Where is this road heading? What will become of everything? Will the future be like what’s already going on in my head? No, the world’s still out there. Nothing ever goes away, it just accumulates. Especially for me, who can’t see worth a damn, yes, I just sit here with a head full of stupid pictures…”
It’s clear that even in younger days, Edwin was far from kindly. He treated the patients in the rest home with distant efficiency but secretly thought they should be suffocated in their beds. He loses his job just as his sanity lapses: he attacks a nurse. From then on his busy career fades into the small, smelly room where he ruminates about prior patients and coworkers and pleads for Death to arrive soon to release him from his thoughts:
“Take it all, I mean it, don’t leave so much as a bedroom slipper behind, annihilate me, smash me into kindling, into dust, then vacuum me up, leave no evidence, I don’t want to be remembered for anything…I long for you to come and beat my thoughts into submission…they’ve plagued me long enough, do nothing but torment me,…all they can think about, all they remember, is themselves…But I don’t want to think about them anymore…letting them have their way with me is a worse defeat than death.”
Elna, for her part, remains distant from Edwin, as his still breathing corpse is no company and company is what she craves. A broken light bulb, necessitating a visit from the building’s young superintendent, finally gives Elna a chance. And the malevolent force that enters their miserable life changes everything.
Siamese is not a mystery novel, but at times I had to remind myself to breathe as the suspense built. A character study of two deeply connected but polarized individuals, it is fascinating to read and see how their actions push each other into reactions that are both ugly and frightening. It’s also terribly frightening: the helplessness and lack of contact along with the certainty of impending death gave me chills.
The novel was originally written in Norwegian and was translated by Stokes Schwartz.
Siamese examines the inner thoughts and outer actions of this strange pair, in the most intimate of ways. Elna is so involved in Edwin’s death (as it is he is more dead than alive) that she lacks the most basic grasp of common sense, unless it comes to deceiving Edwin. Edwin glories in his demise, cataloguing each symptom and detail with relish. It’s almost as if his decay proves that he existed in the first place, because in his constant reminiscing he often tries to analyze if he really did live. His thoughts are random, vulgar, and filled with hate. He asks himself: “Where is this road heading? What will become of everything? Will the future be like what’s already going on in my head? No, the world’s still out there. Nothing ever goes away, it just accumulates. Especially for me, who can’t see worth a damn, yes, I just sit here with a head full of stupid pictures…”
It’s clear that even in younger days, Edwin was far from kindly. He treated the patients in the rest home with distant efficiency but secretly thought they should be suffocated in their beds. He loses his job just as his sanity lapses: he attacks a nurse. From then on his busy career fades into the small, smelly room where he ruminates about prior patients and coworkers and pleads for Death to arrive soon to release him from his thoughts:
“Take it all, I mean it, don’t leave so much as a bedroom slipper behind, annihilate me, smash me into kindling, into dust, then vacuum me up, leave no evidence, I don’t want to be remembered for anything…I long for you to come and beat my thoughts into submission…they’ve plagued me long enough, do nothing but torment me,…all they can think about, all they remember, is themselves…But I don’t want to think about them anymore…letting them have their way with me is a worse defeat than death.”
Elna, for her part, remains distant from Edwin, as his still breathing corpse is no company and company is what she craves. A broken light bulb, necessitating a visit from the building’s young superintendent, finally gives Elna a chance. And the malevolent force that enters their miserable life changes everything.
Siamese is not a mystery novel, but at times I had to remind myself to breathe as the suspense built. A character study of two deeply connected but polarized individuals, it is fascinating to read and see how their actions push each other into reactions that are both ugly and frightening. It’s also terribly frightening: the helplessness and lack of contact along with the certainty of impending death gave me chills.
The novel was originally written in Norwegian and was translated by Stokes Schwartz.
November 19, 2023
Å lese Stig Sæterbakken er som alltid mørkt, dystert og grumsete - men ikke desto mindre fantastisk! En kort og konsentrert roman om to gamle mennesker i (en slags) giftig symbiose.
November 6, 2025
Debería escribir alguna reseña sobre este librazo, pero me toca demasiado de cerca y no creo que pueda.
October 24, 2016
Is there something wrong with me? I thought that, far from being a grotesque descent into the depths of human hideousness, this was a fairly touching novel about how two people, even in the absolute depths, can get along okay. The invalid doesn't do anything too bad to his wife. The wife doesn't do anything too bad to his husband. Perhaps the obviously Beckettian set-up made me expect something a bit colder; perhaps the translation doesn't really do justice to Saeterbakken's prose, which seems, on the evidence here, to be quite jaunty. Perhaps I'm just not interested in physical disgust unmediated by intelligent reflection.
If I want to be disgusted, I'll read Swift's poetry. That way, I get way more disgusted, but amused, as well.
If I want to be disgusted, I'll read Swift's poetry. That way, I get way more disgusted, but amused, as well.
August 31, 2023
Relationship goals <3
July 30, 2023
Exactly How [Dark] can Writing Get? — Elkins
The so-called Imaginary Situation may be the characteristic form of Child's Play. The role-playing child-doctor-astronaut-Godzilla images itself to be an earnest embodiment of the real thing (and perhaps even believes for a moment). This is also a manifest quality of some very good and very bad writing. "At death we will be together in the tomb," though Aida alights with vigor at curtain call (since it's so boring down there).
Sæterbakken, who has evidently never fallen asleep with gum in his mouth, appears to have imagined himself to have done so (and then to have put it on the page). Why else would he suggest that our chronically (and presumed terminally) ill bathroom-dweller continues to think/speak/write in the kind of goal-directed television-dialogue, which, for some reason, (unfortunately) appears to characterize Nordic prose. On the subject of somatic illness, our author may beguile a certain professor of Art History, Theory, and Criticism, though some of us, for better or (likely) worse, are living closer to the ground. Sæterbakken has a way to go if he intends to portray the (over)burden of disease. Are we to understand our Discontents' Dark-est Dia-logue as child's play or the real thing?
Imaginary History and Physical Note
I had the pleasure to meet and assess @NAME@, who is apleasantgentleman with multiple chronic medical conditions and significant disease burden (Karnofsky Performance Score 30) who presents with frequent bloody bowel movements and BRBPR. Loose stools progressive over several days associated with abdominal discomfort which patient reports as mild with no modifying factors. Patient reports poor diet consisting almost exclusively of meat products, and denies recent dietary changes. Patient does not take any fiber or dietary supplements.
Family History: Reviewed and not pertinent
Social History: Retired hospital administrator (?). Lives in upstairs apartment with wife who provides all care. Confined to bathroom "by choice" (review this, concern for spousal abuse). No VNA or outside nursing assistance.
Review of Systems:
GEN: Fatigue, Denies fever, Denies weight loss; ENDO: Fatigue, Cold intolerance; HEENT: "Rotting gums", Denies gum/tooth pain, Denies pain with mastication; PULM: Denies cough, Denies SOB; CV: Denies CP, Denies Palpitations, Denies Syncope; GI: Frequent loose bowel movements, BRPBR, Denies N/V, Denies dysphagia, Denies odynophagia; GU: Chronic indwelling urinary catheter, chronic loss of sensation to penis; EXT: Weakness, Denies LE edema; NEURO: Complete loss of LE sensation and loss of sensation to hands, Denies HA; PSYCH: Denies SI/HI
Physical Exam:
GEN: Seated in wheelchair, mild distress; HEENT: Blindness, b/l lens opacification, Edentulous, dry mucous membranes, bolus of chewing gum present in oral cavity; PULM: poor inspiratory effort with impaired air entry, end-expiratory wheeze; CV: RRR, no MRG; GI: Obese, mildly distended, tender, Stool containment system in place (?!); GU: Urinary catheter in place, concentrated urine EXT: Wasting of b/l LE; NEURO: Poor cooperation on exam. 1/5 strength B/L LE. Loss of sensation to b/l hips, chronic venous statis changes with numerous small ulcerations. Subjective loss of sensation to b/l wrists, though able to easily unwrap chewing gum wrappers throughout exam.; PSYCH: Alert and oriented x3/4 (oriented to self, place, situation, NOT year), thoughts linear, goal-directed, mildly tangential, content of thoughts upset and resentful
Problem History9D90.6 Blindness; laterality: XK9J Bilateral; associated with: 9D96 Impairment of uncorrected visual acuity
8C03.3 Polyneuropathy in nutritional deficiency
GA90 Hyperplasia of prostate
MF50.3 Retention of urine
QF23 Difficulty or need for assistance with mobility
QF27 Difficulty or need for assistance at home and no other household member able to render care
HA40 Aetiological considerations in sexual dysfunctions and sexual pain disorders
HA00.2 Hypoactive sexual desire dysfunction, acquired, generalised
Associated with HA40.4 Aetiological considerations associated with relationship factors
6D70.2 Delirium due to multiple etiological factors
Assessment:
@NAME@'s loose and bloody BM's in the setting of poor diet and chronic constipation with mild impairment of mental status is concerning for sepsis secondary to diverticulitis. Differential diagnosis also includes GI bleed, Catheter-associated urosepsis, malignancy, and superficial erosion of anorectal epithelium from stool containment system for which there is no active indication. Patient currently unable to manage activities of daily living at home with evidence of poor diet and reported confinement concerning for spousal and elder abuse, and will require long-term placement. Patient will be transported by ambulance from clinic to ED for further evaluation. Although septicemia is life threatening, patient's overall presentation is encouraging, and the absence of obvious terminal pathology suggests potential for significant longevity pending recovery from acute illness and appropriate home care. Detailed plan as below:
#NEURO
#Peripheral Neuropathy
Likely secondary to poor nutrition, though also concerned about distant cauda equina in setting of possible incontinence
-Thiamine, B12, Folate levels obtained
-Thiamine, B12, Folate, and multivitamin recommended.
-Dietary supplement with Ensure TID
#HEENT
#Edentulous Oral Cavity
Does not have dentures at home
-Referral to dentist
#Blindness
#c/f Retinal Degeneration
#B/l Cataracts
-Encourage verbal communication
-Delirium precautions
#CV
#Chronic Venous Stasis Changes
-Wound care for leg wounds
#Concern for heart failure
-TTE
#GI
#Concern for diverticulitis
-Recommend CT Abdomen/Pelvis for evaluation of suspected diverticulitis
-Recommend removal of stool containment system, no current medical indication
#Concern for GI bleed
Also long overdue for screening colonoscopy
-CBC
-Nil Per Os
-Proton pump inhibitor IV twice daily
-GI consult for EGD/Colonoscopy pending CT A/P
#RENAL/ENDO
#Concern for Acute Kidney Injury
Reports only drinking warm soda
-BMP
-Recommend initiation of maintenance fluids while NPO
#Concern for hypothyroidism
-TSH, T4
#GU
#Concern for catheter-associated UTI
#BPH
-Urinary catheter removed and replaced
-Urinalysis sent (catheter source)
#ID
#Concern for Sepsis
-Blood cultures x2, CXR, UA as above
-Cefepime/Flagyl, avoiding vanc/zosyn in setting of unknown renal function
-MRSA nares
#Concern for Sacral wound
Patient with remarkably intact skin given reported absence of movement
-Wound care consult
-Turns Every 2 hours
-apply Mepilex
#PSYCH/SOC
#Concern for MDD
-Recommend initiation of SSRI
#Concern for Elderly abuse/Spousal Abuse
-Social work notified, requires further evaluation and likely placement in long-term care facility
Greater than 50 percent of this visit was spent in direct counseling, coordination, and patient care
@SIGNATURE@
@DATE@
CPT Billing Code 99204 (New Patient, Level 4 decision making)
Procedure Code 57102 (Replacement of indwelling urinary catheter)
"Is this tight [dark] enough for you?" — Pynchon
February 2, 2019
Ubehagelig lesning.
January 31, 2020
Dyster, grå, trist og til tider utmattende, men allikevel interessant lesning. En bør ha en mental helse av stål om resten av trilogien er av liknende karakter.
June 24, 2023
Vad är motsatsen till feel good? Svar: Stig Sæterbakken. Siamesisk är oerhört obekväm, men oerhört läsvärd.
January 28, 2024
i feel uncomfortable
May 30, 2021
Et mørkt og makabert psykologisk spill mellom to mennesker i kontroll av hverandre. Indre dialoger som driver karakterene frem mot en litt utydelig og ikke helt troverdig siste del.
March 16, 2022
This, especially, is happening to me
February 24, 2019
Los protagonistas y narradores de Siamés son una pareja de ancianos: Edwin Mortens que es casi ciego, pero tiene buen oído, y su esposa Erna, que tiene problemas de audición, pero tiene unos ojos preciosos. Paralizado de la cintura para abajo, Edwin permanece sentado y encerrado en su baño todo el día, todos los días, tratando de liberar la mente de su cuerpo. El experimento va relativamente bien, casi todas sus funciones corporales han cesado, sus extremidades están en un estado de descomposición y el sistema digestivo está en proceso de descomposición. Para pasar el tiempo Edwin dedica sus días a masticar chicle y gritarle a su esposa, de quien es, sin embargo, completamente dependiente. La vida de Erna, a pesar del abuso constante de Edwin, gira en torno a su marido horrible. Edwin y Erna viven en un estado de perfecto equilibrio, alimentado por el hábito, la crueldad, la humillación y, posiblemente, el amor, hasta que un joven de mantenimiento es llamado a reemplazar una bombilla en el baño de Edwin, y los “gemelos siameses” se ven envueltos en un Nueva y viciosa lucha por el poder.
Una pieza de ficción incómoda, que nos hace pensar si estamos tan alejados de esas criaturas repugnantes como creemos que estamos. El tiempo se mueve lento, pero pasa rápido, y antes de que te des cuenta, todo ha terminado. No es una novela de misterio, pero a veces tienes que respirar hondo ante el suspense. Un estudio de dos individuos profundamente conectados pero polarizados, fascinante de leer y ver cómo con sus acciones feas y aterradoras saltan al precipicio. La impotencia, la falta de contacto y la certeza de la muerte inminente te produce escalofríos. Uno de mis libros favoritos de 2018, otra vez Mármara. Muy recomendable.
Una pieza de ficción incómoda, que nos hace pensar si estamos tan alejados de esas criaturas repugnantes como creemos que estamos. El tiempo se mueve lento, pero pasa rápido, y antes de que te des cuenta, todo ha terminado. No es una novela de misterio, pero a veces tienes que respirar hondo ante el suspense. Un estudio de dos individuos profundamente conectados pero polarizados, fascinante de leer y ver cómo con sus acciones feas y aterradoras saltan al precipicio. La impotencia, la falta de contacto y la certeza de la muerte inminente te produce escalofríos. Uno de mis libros favoritos de 2018, otra vez Mármara. Muy recomendable.
November 18, 2011
absolutely hilarious story of a long married couple, totally decrepit in body, totally scathing in mind, arguing, pissing, moaning, nitpicking, finding fault, and utterly dependent on each other. shoot, they may even love each other. maybe geared for baby boomers children, rather than 20 somethings in the teens, but nevertheless a tourdeforce of inner dialog and the horrid ending most all of us face.
May 2, 2013
unfortunately, I couldn't make it past about page 50. Intriguing, experimental, but having given it 50 pages I realized I didn't like anything.
May 24, 2023
En fullständigt kolsvart, i sin blekhet strålande berättelse om medberoende. Ett relationsdrama både med och utan kärlek om rädslan för att dö och längtan efter att leva...eller om det var tvärtom.
Jag vet inte vad jag förväntade mig av en 180-sidorsroman om en halvförlamad man som tuggar tuggummi och balanserar på livets ytterkant medan en kvinna lagar pannbiff och undrar om livet har något mer att komma med. Jag vet dock att jag slukade boken på två dagar och direkt ville ha mer. Här finns galghumor, nihilism och makabert, kroppsligt äckel som tvingas samsas med dysfunktionell kärlek, styrkan i tvåsamhet och väntan på sin egen död. Det här är en historia som ibland läses mer som en mardröm eller en surrealistisk skildring av att tyna bort, själsligt och kroppsligt, men det är ändå fantastiskt att ta del av.
Jag pendlar mellan en fyra och en femma i betyg. Idag får det bli en fyra. Jag tycker nog att författaren kunde gå ytterligare lite längre - slänga alla kvarvarande tabun överbord och köra rätt in i det makabra. Vi står ändå redan där, bland tuggummipapper i lysrör i skiten och trivs. Å andra sidan kanske det är helt rätt att stanna innan det blir lite för mycket...
Det är nästintill omöjligt att få tag på Stig Saeterbakken på svenska och det sörjer jag. Det är verkligen dags för en nyutgivning av hans verk (och att översätta dem som ännu inte blivit översatta).
Jag vet inte vad jag förväntade mig av en 180-sidorsroman om en halvförlamad man som tuggar tuggummi och balanserar på livets ytterkant medan en kvinna lagar pannbiff och undrar om livet har något mer att komma med. Jag vet dock att jag slukade boken på två dagar och direkt ville ha mer. Här finns galghumor, nihilism och makabert, kroppsligt äckel som tvingas samsas med dysfunktionell kärlek, styrkan i tvåsamhet och väntan på sin egen död. Det här är en historia som ibland läses mer som en mardröm eller en surrealistisk skildring av att tyna bort, själsligt och kroppsligt, men det är ändå fantastiskt att ta del av.
Jag pendlar mellan en fyra och en femma i betyg. Idag får det bli en fyra. Jag tycker nog att författaren kunde gå ytterligare lite längre - slänga alla kvarvarande tabun överbord och köra rätt in i det makabra. Vi står ändå redan där, bland tuggummipapper i lysrör i skiten och trivs. Å andra sidan kanske det är helt rätt att stanna innan det blir lite för mycket...
Det är nästintill omöjligt att få tag på Stig Saeterbakken på svenska och det sörjer jag. Det är verkligen dags för en nyutgivning av hans verk (och att översätta dem som ännu inte blivit översatta).
January 28, 2022
Excelente libro. Es algo crudo pero de vez en cuando cómico (al menos eso me pareció a mí).
Me pareció muy buen contraste entre la narración de Edwin y la de Erna, y pff, me encantó cómo el autor le dio vida al personaje de Edwin; estuvo completamente acertado ese monólogo interminable en donde habla acerca de cómo no le importaría quedarse únicamente con su cabeza y perder del resto de su cuerpo.
Me pareció que este es el tipo de libro que te hace reflexionar acerca de muchas cosas, más de un par de veces me dejó sin aliento por todos aquellos pensamientos crudos y realistas, tanto de Edwin como de Erna con los que coincidía pero en los que jamás había reparado por mí misma.
Además de eso, también es doloroso de leer, esa codependencia enfermiza que comparten; toda esa frustración que vive dentro de Edwin y que desquita en Erna, pfff, tiene de todo este libro, lo recomiendo muchísimo.
Me pareció muy buen contraste entre la narración de Edwin y la de Erna, y pff, me encantó cómo el autor le dio vida al personaje de Edwin; estuvo completamente acertado ese monólogo interminable en donde habla acerca de cómo no le importaría quedarse únicamente con su cabeza y perder del resto de su cuerpo.
Me pareció que este es el tipo de libro que te hace reflexionar acerca de muchas cosas, más de un par de veces me dejó sin aliento por todos aquellos pensamientos crudos y realistas, tanto de Edwin como de Erna con los que coincidía pero en los que jamás había reparado por mí misma.
Además de eso, también es doloroso de leer, esa codependencia enfermiza que comparten; toda esa frustración que vive dentro de Edwin y que desquita en Erna, pfff, tiene de todo este libro, lo recomiendo muchísimo.
June 7, 2025
I feel like some of the most evocative writing in this must have been lost in translation. It definitely falls short of the Beckett-Bernhard reminiscence mentioned in the blurb (who would ever advertise a book like that?), and its narrators are only occasionally insightful on the topics marriage, coexistence, and codependence Without the depth of substance that the subject had potential for, it mostly amounts to a blind old man bitterly rotting away in his bathroom while complaining about his life and equally bitter, deaf wife who does plenty complaining of her own. Darkly comedic? Not really. Sometimes they kind of sound like they love each other "in spite of it all," but for me that does not an existential novel make. A shallow aphorism about marriage at best.
November 20, 2025
As someone who genuinely enjoys strangeness (like that of Kafka's Metamorphosis), I had really hoped I'd find this book more enjoyable. --and in the beginning I did indeed find it comical, but eventually it just grew tiresome.
Siamese is a critique of the severe codependency of a married couple, Edwin and Erna, played out through their gruesome inner thoughts about and actions toward one another.
To be within the mind of Edwin, especially, was ugly.
Honestly, the closer I got to the end of the novel, the happier I was it was almost finished. I can appreciate the novel for what it is, but perhaps wish it were even shorter? It didn't feel necessary for the Edwin and Erna's story to continue on further.
Perhaps, if shorter, I'd have enjoyed it much more.
Siamese is a critique of the severe codependency of a married couple, Edwin and Erna, played out through their gruesome inner thoughts about and actions toward one another.
To be within the mind of Edwin, especially, was ugly.
Honestly, the closer I got to the end of the novel, the happier I was it was almost finished. I can appreciate the novel for what it is, but perhaps wish it were even shorter? It didn't feel necessary for the Edwin and Erna's story to continue on further.
Perhaps, if shorter, I'd have enjoyed it much more.
November 3, 2025
Me decepcionó bastante. Esperaba algo un poco más complejo, o más angustiante, o más repulsivo, y terminó siendo una historia triste y cotidiana de vejez. Me gustaron algunos aspectos, lo irremediable de la senectud, la degeneración del cuerpo, la dinámica entre los dos protagonistas en donde el poder fluye de formas no siempre claras, el detalle de que él trabajase en un geriátrico, la diferencia entre la realidad y los pensamientos, la contradicción misma del pensamiento, etc.
Pero no tiene mucho para ofrecer.
Pero no tiene mucho para ofrecer.
February 12, 2025
To be honest, I'd rather watch the dullest mysterious movie than read such a dark realism based on paranoia in a marriage and unhealthy desire to dominate and eventually dead. I already read its Turkish translation, which felt like watching a foreign movie with hilarious subtitles. It was never a page turner, though anyone could enjoy it unless they are looking for a bed of roses.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 72 reviews