Mykle sets a quarter of his novel in your actual Nazi Germany of 1939 and doesn’t manage more than a handful of back-handed criticisms. True, the book is more about the narrator’s home circumstances, from which he is fleeing, and his romantic ideas about Paris, and clearly positioned as comedy – there’s even a scene in which he encounters a French toilet for the first time. The narrator is painted as part-naïf part-idiot part-bumpkin, and while his romantic misconceptions provide a good base for some of the humour, some of it is also a bit too, well, adolescent, male adolescent. Mykle died in 1994, and his last novel was… Rubicon – chiefly, it seems, because of the controversy caused by an earlier novel, 1957’s The Song of Red Ruby (which resulted in an obscenity trial in Norway). I’m tempted to have a go at that controversial novel – secondhand copies in English seem to be readily available – but I can’t say that Rubicon motivates me to track down a copy. Rubicon is a well-crafted novel, with a good control of voice, but it all felt a bit meh to me. Incidentally, inside the book I found an Air France boarding card dated January 1978. It’s not the oldest bookmark I’ve found in a book. I found one once dated 1945… ( )

'Rubicon' is Mykles last book, but the story is about Valemon Gristvågs (who seem to be Ask Burlefot from the other books) summer-vacation that in time takes place between 'Lasso around Luna' and the 'Song of the red ruby'. The character rides his motorcycle from Norway via Denmark and Germany to France in 1939 just before the outbreak of the second world war. Mykle describes the innocence of going from peaceful Scandinavia and into the brutal dynasty of Nazi-Germany. He hesitates on the border between Denmark and Germany, crossing the border is like crossing the Rubicon river. 40 years later I took the same trip. I got the same feeling when I was thrust into the brutal dynasty of the german Autobahn (I'm not joking!). Mykles character is so happy arriving in France after having driven through Germany that he starts making love to a french tree.

It is quite witty at times, for instance his fantasies about impressing the worlds greatest philosphers like Platon and Sokrates with his ground-breaking theoris.

And also -- when did you last read a book where the hero is panicking because he has a growing urge to take a dump, and how the hunt for a bathroom and the fear of letting go is described in detail until the great final where he releases himself over a traditional french toilet ? ( )