Dag Solstad, Shyness and Dignity ****

Shyness and Dignity is a short novel about a fateful day in the life of Elias Rukla, a Norwegian secondary school teacher. It starts as a portrait of the discontents of an ordinary man and builds gradually into a powerful vision of how life passes one by.

The story has three distinct sections that could almost stand alone as short stories. 

In the first, Elias teaches a class about Ibsen's The Wild Duck. On this particular day, Elias feels like he's on the trail of an epiphany about the import of one of the play's minor characters but recognizes that his students couldn't care less about it. This contrast causes him to reflect on the role of teachers in passing culture on to the next generation. The section ends with an unexpected burst of frustration.

The second section flashes back to Elias' own student days and his friendship with a promising philosophy student Johan. The story focuses on Johan's development but you can feel Elias trying to apply his Wild Duck insight to himself, to assess his own import as a minor character in Johan's life. This section too ends with an unexpected burst of frustration, from Johan.

In the final section, Elias thinks about his relationship with his wife, built on shared intimacies and reference points, which leads him to think about how he no longer shares intimacies or cultural reference points with the larger society. He feels left behind. He has a moment of joy when a fellow teacher references The Magic Mountain, but alas it doesn't evolve into a closer friendship. This section, and the book, ends with the reader understanding the previously unexpected bursts of frustration.

I related to Elias' feelings and was moved by them. You can––and should––read Shyness and Dignity in a couple of sittings.