‘Shyness and Dignity’ by Dag Solstad

What happens when the techniques of realist literature become absorbed into our understanding of real life? And what would it mean to try to depict that experience in fiction? In Dag Solstad’s Shyness and Dignity (1994), a middle-aged teacher, Elias Rukla, is teaching Ibsen’s The Wild Duck for perhaps the hundredth time when he has a revelation about an apparently insignificant detail in the play relating to a minor character, Dr Relling. The detail is classically realist in that it appears to have no importance in the plot, yet it acquires a major significance in Rukla’s life, who shortly after the lesson has a breakdown in the school playground and is convinced his career is finished.

In this episode, James Wood is joined by Adam Thirlwell to discuss a novel that avoids the expectations of realism to explore the psychological and cultural impact of the realist tradition.

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Read more in the LRB:

Adam Mars-Jones on Solstad: https://lrb.me/realism1101

David Edgar on Ibsen: https://lrb.me/realism1103

Michael Hofmann on Thomas Bernhard: https://lrb.me/realism1102