The Model

Lars Saabye Christensen

Addenda

Otago Daily Times, April 22nd 2008

If you could choose, would you prefer to be blind or deaf? These words haunt the dreams of the artist at the centre of The Model by Lars Saabye Christensen. Peter Wihl was once the darling of the Norwegian art world, whose paintings of disembodied limbs and organs placed him at the forefront of the avantgarde. Twenty-five years later, happily married with a young daughter he adores and a major exhibition in the planning, his life should be perfect. But Peter is burdened by two secrets; his artistic inspiration has fled, and he has an incurable eye condition that will blind him within six months.

When he accepts the offer of an experimental (and illegal) surgical procedure that promises to save his sight, the answer comes as easily as it does in his dreams — but the bargain turns out to be far more Faustian in reality.

Although Peter’s vision, both physical and artistic, is restored, he discovers that sight is not the worst thing that he can lose.

While the exact details of the operation are never revealed, the underlying sense of darkness and corruption leave an echo that lasts well beyond the last page, a tribute both to the author and his translator, Don Bartlett.