There, in Bjorgvin, lives another Asle, also a painter but lonely and consumed by alcohol. Asle and Asle are doppelgängers – two versions of the same person, two versions of the same life, both grappling with existential questions. In this final instalment of Jon Fosse’s Septology, the major prose work by ‘the Beckett of the twenty-first century’ (Le Monde), Christmas is approaching. Tradition has it that Asleik and Asle eat lutefisk together, but this year Asle has agreed for the first time to celebrate Christmas with Asleik and his sister, Guro. On Christmas Eve, Asleik, Asle, and the dog Bragi take Asleik’s boat out on the Sygnefjord.