Osebol by Marit Kapla translated by Peter Graves

“The scenery here is dramatic.

There’s the low land

and then the river

and steep mountain sides.

and the houses…

It’s very special.”

I have long been a fan of ‘polyphonic’ non-fiction; works that collect word of mouth stories from people who have lived through or experienced something. Svetlana Alexievitch is, of course, the most famous of those polyphonic writers, with good reason. She has a way of capturing the personalities of the people she talks to. Often Alexievitch explores terrible events, and her books can be hard to read. Haruki Murakami also experimented with the form in Underground, which explores the sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway. Another quite harrowing story. Osebol deploys the same technique, but it is quite a different story. Written in short, poetic bursts it explores the lives of people living in a small town in Sweden, the Osebol of the title. It is a small town which is in decline,. Once a hub for forestry work it has suffered the declining fortunes of many a small village, in which depopulation, decline of services and tourism bear a heavy burden on those poeple who don’t want to migrate to cities.

“And you learn some truths

that hold equally well in the outside world…

it takes many people pulling in the same direction

to make things go well

but it only takes a few

pulling in different directions

for everything to go to hell.”

Osebol is the work of Marit Kapla, a journalist who herself grew up in Osebol, who moved away and came back and moved away again. Over the course of 2016 and 2017 she interviewed the residents of Osebol and translated their stories into this strangely affecting collection. It is at once beautiful, hopeful, soulful, nostalgic and sad. She talks to people who have been there their whole lives, people who have migrated there, people who have chosen this quiet, empty old town for those very qualities – its silence, its beauty, its isolation.

“I’ve got used to having space.

Both inside and out.

Freedom

and space

and then people…

In a place like this you don’t have people around you

you have individuals.

You get closer to one another.”

One of the powers of the polyphonic style is that it gives you a rounded picture of whatever it is that’s being explored. As you might expect, that means encountering a range of voices, views and opinions, not all of which may be palatable. The interviewees talk of their history, how they ended up in Osebol, how the town has changed. They talk of the bridge, which has been condemned but could be repaired with EU money. They talk of refugees, some of the interviewees are themselves refugees though not from the most recent migrations. They talk of hunting, of wolves, the closure of local banks, post offices, community centres. The way the children have to go to school in another town because there are no longer enough students to sustain something locally. The effect it has on the children, their confidence. How they don’t stay. What that means for the future of the place.

“The fact of it being a valley…

I think it’s very beautiful

especially the view down the valley.

But many people feel…

even in the commune they did…

lots of people weren’t happy

because it felt confined.

Couldn’t be doing with it.

Whereas others thought of it

as warm and protective.”

There is a sense of community, but a community which is being broken down. They are still clinging to something. Like all communities they have their good side and bad side. A distrust of strangers, a sense that some people, however long they stay, are still outsiders. And yet it is a friendly place. People are individuals, not just people. Everyone knows each other and each other’s business. They care for each other. They still have time, time and space. It is beautiful but brutal. The way it has changed, the way everything is slowly going to pieces, it saddens them.

This is a deceptively simple book, which is very deep and very complex. Nothing is foisted on you. Everyone who is interviewed is….human. They are complex, they have dreams and hopes, they have wants and needs. They feel something they once had is missing, and it grieves them. There is something lovely about it, and yet it is crushingly sad. No one really complains. They get on with life, stoically. As people do.

Many of the people interviewed have since died. I hope before they went they had chance to read what Kapla has written on their behalf. It is such a sweet book Sweet and nostalgic and melancholy in a way it’ll take me some time process.

Like all the best books do.