... heartfelt and heartbreaking ... Dickson, who translated Øyehaug's two prior English-language books, repeatedly evokes these 'infinite universes' in luxuriant sentences that often spill across entire pages. And she beautifully conveys the soft emotions characteristic of Øyehaug's writing through evocative phrases ... It is a complex web of ideas ... Øyehaug's utterly unique novel will sit with you long after you finish playing your part.
... pleasurably unexpected descriptions and touches of humor ... She makes herself very visible to the reader through steady reminders of artifice. In a chapter she titles 'The Digression,' the narrator announces that the previous chapter has reminded her of the BICEP2, a telescope mounted on the South Pole: 'It strikes us as unfair that physicists are able to build a telescope like that and install it on earth, with its listening ear turned to space, but language theorists can’t do the same.' If readers do not already see themselves in that 'us,' these characters may exhaust rather than convert them. But for the rest of us, the novel is an ingenious pocket universe where time moves not just forward or even backward but in sideways leaps. Questions about the nature of reality are made poignant by the characters asking them: women struggling to understand who they are in the shadow of losses they can sense but not remember.
... an elegant translation by Kari Dickson ... Øyehaug is splendidly clever, perhaps too clever for some. But she’s also thoughtful, using her elaborately conceived, interconnected narrative spirals to ask questions about the relevance and importance of stories, and about connections between the literarily lived life and the literally lived life. Simultaneously, she inquires about and, in spite of everything, enacts the divine power of language to create.
... by synthesizing the sci-fi trope of parallel universes with stories from Genesis, as well as Greek mythology (i.e., Orpheus and Eurydice, Demeter and Persephone), Present Tense Machine—seamlessly translated by Kari Dickson—assumes varied yet unifying forms: as a gestational fable with a beginning, and middle, but no end; a metaphysical poem on infinite loop; a refutation and affirmation of mortality; and a lyrical essay on the gaps between an original text and its translation. Ultimately, as an ingeniously constructed 'machine,' Øyehaug's novel evokes a cosmos that can simultaneously expand and compress.
Your appreciation of Gunnhild Øyehaugh’s Present Tense Machine, translated by Kari Dickson, will be partially predicated on how much you think about multiverses, or déjà vu, or ever have had the indescribable sense of something missing, in yourself, in others. What elevates this novel beyond the admittedly fascinating realm of such scientific ruminations is how Øyehaugh uses this construct to explore relationships, identity, and the power of language ... It’s an immensely satisfying experience to read Kari Dickson’s expert translation in which Øyehaugh’s poetic talents soar, and there’s also a delightful irony in reading it in English rather than Norwegian, especially as it’s a story about how a misread word may send us into a wormhole.
Though the novel is hard to follow at times, Øyehaug builds tension with run-on sentences and almost no paragraph breaks. Even with the unconventional writing style, the story is a page-turner. Some may find Present Tense Machine a little too fantastical, but fans of speculative fiction or the film Interstellar will be in reading heaven.
... one of the most exciting contemporary voices in international literature ... In another masterful translation by Dickson of Øyehaug's wily, mercurial prose, the author-translator team frolics across the multiverse to explore the rifts that open between, most especially, mothers and daughters but also spouses and ex-lovers and between self-perception and how others experience us ... With wry hyperbole, Øyehaug plays out the effects one seemingly inconsequential mistake can have on our relationships, our selves, and the lives of the next generation. A perfect Mobius strip of a novel that playfully examines the creative and destructive potential of language.
... playful and poignant ... Some of the mundane details of Anna’s, Laura’s, and the narrator’s lives slow the story, but the ruminations on existence and purpose consistently captivate. Ultimately, Øyehaug steers this to a wholly satisfying conclusion.
