Skum

About this book

"Skum" by Edith Øberg is a novel written in the early 20th century. Set around a lavish island sanatorium called Capranola, it follows the mercurial, talkative Run Bates and the self-contained Meninsky as they spar over reality, will, time, and art while she becomes fixated on meeting the famed conductor Paviere. With epistolary touches and dreamlike shifts, the narrative blends witty dialogue, lyrical description, and psychological probing to explore joy in the present versus the lure of fantasy.

The opening of this novel begins on a ship at dusk, where Run Bates mistakes the reserved Meninsky for the celebrated Paviere and, after a comic shock, pursues conversation with breathless intensity. A sudden authorial letter frames Run as a “medium” in a series of planned missives, then the scene moves to Palazzo Garnese on Capranola, where breakfasts, garden walks, and rooftop nights set the stage for Run’s philosophies about reality, egoism, and seizing the moment. Meninsky offers to summon Paviere through a Paris doctor, prompting Run’s ecstatic retelling of first “seeing” Paviere by his expressive back at a concert, which she reads through Nietzsche’s “joy in the nearest things.” Further episodes—her goldfish grab in a moonlit courtyard, meditations under falling blossom, a starry discourse on personality radiating into the cosmos, and brisk debates in birch and labyrinth—deepen the charged rapport between Run and Meninsky, closing with her sharper, more commanding voice as she challenges his reluctance to truly look and live.