The Other Name - I is Another and The New Name

[Hugh]

I think we need a discussion of the other two volumes of the Septology (I is Another: Septology III-V and A New Name: Septology VI-VII) with no spoiler rules, because some of the more intriguing questions in The Other Name are clarified, but others become more interesting and enigmatic. In particular I would be interested in any thoughts on the final part, and at what point did the separate stories of the two Asles become clearer in your mind.

NB This is the place for free spoiler discussions of the whole Septology. I have created a separate thread for those who want to discuss I is Another without having A New Name spoiled.

[Paula]

I’m a big hater of spoiler rules (if you haven’t done the reading, don’t look) so I’m all in Hugh!

[Nidhi]

I finished this book a couple of days ago. Reading it , was a great experience, I have never read a book so fast. I will post my full reflections on the book at the end of the month.

For the first time i didn't have to go through philosophical text multiple times in order to grasp it. I liked Fosse's Philosophy of art and his philosophy of Religion and Spirituality, I could absorb only around 70% of religious philosophy but that is a drawback on my part.

The third philosophy that comprises of the plot and the painting St. Andrew's Cross , which author reveals in the last pages of the final part VII, baffles me. I am still processing it and would like to know what you all think about it when you have finished the book.

[Hugh]

One thing that I think became very clear to me by part III is that when Asle I talks about the child/young adult as Asle, it is definitely his own narrative and not Asle II's, and that this young Asle's story is told throughout in a fairly straight chronological order. Asle I sees his own past through the pictures, so to some extent that distances it. Obviously to some extent Asle II is a doppelganger and a lesson in what might have been, but since both are really Fosse's fictional constructions, some of the questions about the logic of the narrative are left to the reader's imagination.

I liked the way the young Asle and Ales saw the man in the car, so this part of the story was told from two perspectives.

As for the two Guros, do they ever even meet or know about each other?

[Nidhi]

The two Guros were in the café at the same time, where sister Guro was waiting for ferry but they did not acknowledge each other presence. I felt that the women in this book were always on guard against each other , as if they are born rivals predestined to intrude in each other spaces.
Yes, in third part Asle I says that Alida was his sister, so the past was his nor Asle II’s.

[Nidhi]

When I wrote in my previous post that reading this book was a great experience , I meant that I really liked the way the book is structured, the way author gives lease to the reader’s imagination and then revealing the truth… the truth of two Asles and two Guros seemingly one but as the plot proceeds , gradually unravelling into two ….like a helix or strands of DNA. This plot construction is the charm of this book.

[Nidhi]

In the part I , during the scene of room no. 407, Asle I insights give us option to relate the images of the death of grandfather either to the Asle II who was on the verge of death or to Asle I , who was afraid of losing a beloved friend. Because of author’s strategy of using second person narrative instead of conventional first person ‘I’, I took it to be the past images of Alse II.

[Nidhi]

For a fairly long time , I was entertaining the possibility of one Asle , like I did for the scene of brown house on the turn off, that it was intersection of time , like the painting ‘ St Andrew Cross’. I was right in second assumption but wrong in first. Still, that was intended by the author as he presented two sequences without consequences to confuse us,
First is Asle’s thinking that he needs to reach home to his wife and child and second is the scene of childbirth in the barn , where Asle could see light from the stars.

Also Asle I was heavy drinker and chain smoker in past.
The similarity of their appearances and dress is emphasised again and again.
The active insights Asle I has of Asle II’s life and current occurences.

[Nidhi]

In part V, when Sigve mentions to Asle that he knows an artist who looks like him and also named Asle, then we come to know that we know Asle II only in his adult life as Asle I has seen him. In fact we don’t even know his favourite colour , the director of The Art School mentioned that the paintings by two Asles were very similar.
If Alse had not come to Asle I ‘s life and not brought religion with her …. Both Asles might have met the same end.
I guessed the end as soon as Asle I realises that he doesn’t want to paint anymore.

[Nidhi]

Part V mostly tells us about Asle I philosophy of art, how his very painting has something to say, and how he feels giving himself bit by bit away by selling them. For him painting is a way of perceiving The Holy Spirit.
Part VI explains Alse I ‘s notions about God , His closeness and farness, his being everywhere and Nowhere, His being Everything and Nothing, and His presence in Every being .

[Nidhi]

Why Fosse has use two Asles and two Guros to convey these messages can be explained by the term he uses in Part VII, Coincidentia Oppositorum, it is an ancient philosophy which Wikipedia defines as a situation in which the existence or identity of a thing (or situation) depends on the co-existence of at least two conditions which are opposite to each other, yet dependent on each other and presupposing each other, within a field of tension.