Long Live the Post Horn!

Long Live the Post Horn! / Vigdis Hjorth
trans. from the Norwegian by Charlotte Barslund
Brooklyn, NY: Verso Fiction, 2020, c2012 p.
208 p.

I picked up this smallish novel at a book sale because it had been on my list for a while -- including the post office in a novel caught my interest originally! And it really does incorporate the post office, but not in an epistolary way, or any kind of twee lost letter plot. It's about local workers fighting back against an EU postal directive that will cut good jobs, reduce services and lower the quality of life for postal workers. 

And it's also about our main character Ellinor, a PR specialist who takes over this job when one of the partners in her agency dies suddenly. She's strongly affected by the authenticity of the workers she encounters and their clear honest voices; she herself is struggling with feeling disaffected, churning out promos for supermarkets and the like. 

She has a sister, and a boyfriend with a son, but somehow doesn't feel tethered to her life. She's going through the motions, with work, with her romantic relationship, even with her family. But something about the fight to maintain the independence and value of the Norwegian postal system shakes her up. The honest fight for something of value, for something that people believe in, that is just the right thing to do, gives her a sense of meaning, connects her to her society in a wider sense and so allows her to break through the numbness in her own life. 

It's a strange novel in a way, with an unusual subject and spare & a little repetitive in its style, but it suits the story. And it's a story that isn't ironically looking at capitalism or unions -- it's honestly struggling with how to live as a society, how to create equity. And as Ellinor gets involved in this kind of activism, she improves her own life too. 

I really liked this one -- looking at loneliness, isolation and a search for meaning, it also gives uplift in the conclusion, which I found satisfying.