Book review: “Bjarki, Not Bjarki” by Matthew JC Clark

I’ve been told a thousand times that readers want to be surprised. As a frequent reader, I’m not often surprised myself. Bjarki, not Bjarki by Matthew JC Clark (University of Iowa Press) is a wild outlier – bombastic and relentless, the prose dissolves and is woven into chaotic, precise new patterns in a single paragraph.

Ostensibly, this book is about a man who owns a sawmill. More specifically, it is about the author’s experience of the world as he explores the sawmill and its owner, Bjarki. Bjarki’s world is fascinating, and through Clark’s lens, we fall in love with the employees of this particular plank shop. At the same time, we are often transported from one scene into the narrator’s frantic thoughts, which are written almost in a stream of consciousness – he flies through the moments in a way that is disarming rather than disorienting.

I would have compared this writing style to Virginia Woolf (given how disturbing Mrs. Dalloway’s narrative is before it settles into a rhythm) until Clark mentions Hemingway. He mentions him almost in passing – the section focusing on his own insecurities about men doing “men’s work” – and describes a group conversation about his disinterest in reading. Clark doesn’t quite imitate these authors, but it’s certainly an homage. The sentences and paragraphs are long, but I’d like to share an excerpt to illustrate his style:

I was born in Boston but grew up in Woolwich, a rural community across the Kennebec River from Robinson Street in Bath. Not directly across the Kennebec River, but about six or seven miles up the river—that’s where I grew up. In Maine, I mean. The chronology and geography can be confusing because I have it all in my head now and I want to get it right, at least to some extent. There’s everything that happened after that dinner, too, including the moment three years later when I fell in love with Bjarki in the same restaurant, in the same booth. I mean it. The whole place was made of brick.

This is a whole paragraph. Each paragraph builds up like this, returning to a thesis, teaching you to read it as you go, hypnotizing the reader, pulling us along as if we were on a trail. I had been waiting for this book to remind me of the magic of language. Clark’s obsessions are relatable and his love for his subject(s) is palpable. Clark’s dialogue is so precisely written (I don’t mean that he wrote exactly what was said, although I trust he did) that the language of the dialogue and its setting make the speakers and their environment seem real.

His prose is at once casual and lyrical, making it seem like an accident, despite the meticulous detail with which he presents the thoughts and processes behind the creation of this book.

The subtitle of Bjarki, not Bjarki is “About Floorboards, Love, and Irreconcilable Differences,” which is surprisingly succinct (and apt) for a book that seems more about the human condition than anything else.

This article was originally published in the July 2024 issue of Little Village.