“The Lady from the Valley” by Norwegian author Ketil Bjørnstad is the final installment of the trilogy about Axel Vinding (previously published: “The Pianists,” “The River”; KompasGid, 2011–2012). Axel Vinding is an outstanding musician whose debut alone made him the big winner—fame and critical acclaim. On that day, he became famous after removing his trembling hands from the piano keys. The best concert halls in Europe, impresarios, and his pedagogues create such a program that will keep him forever.
The youngest, the most talented, the bravest—and the most unfortunate. On the day of his debut, precisely when his fingers were sliding with feeling across the black-and-white keys of the piano, his wife Marianne took her own life… Axel is about to turn twenty—this is already his third tragic loss in his biography. And it seems he will no longer be able to cope with this whirlpool of events. A suicide attempt, lots of alcohol, another painful romance, and an agonizing Rachmaninoff.
He leaves bustling Oslo for the snow on the border with Russia, to a place where people live, disappearing into the timelessness of the northern lights. Will Axel be able to escape the clutches of his past? Many months pass, and once again Axel Vinding appears in the program of metropolitan social life…