All my life I have longed to be alone in a place like this. Even when everything was going well, as it often did.
-- Trond (chapter 1)

Importance: Trond is nearly 70 and is finally in a cabin on the Swedish border, a cabin he'd longed to live in and own for most of his later adult years. It is not unlike the same type of cabin he spent a summer in, in 1948, with his father.

Time is important to me now, I tell myself. Not that it should pass quickly or slowly, but be only time, be something I live inside and fill with physical things and activities that I can divide it up by, so that it grows distinct to me and does not vanish when I am not looking."
-- Trond (chapter 1)

Importance: For much of his adult life, Trond has lived in the city, where people hide who they are, socialize only superficially, and are...