Beatles (novel)

The boys have a common interest - worship of the Beatles, and take on the names of the group members, John, Paul, George and Ringo.

The main character and storyteller, Kim Karlsen (Paul), is writing the entire story in flashbacks from a sheltered and closed summer residence in Nesodden Municipality.

Kim and his friends, Gunnar (John), Sebastian (George) and Ola (Ringo), played football together, collected Beatles records and stole attributes from cars.

The boys get involved in the Norwegian hippie movement in the late 1960s, experiment with drugs, and Sebastian gets so hooked the others have to look for him in Paris, where he lives the life of a junkie, but is saved by his friends (1968).

Kim has a nervous breakdown and tells the end of his story from inside the asylum at the time of the 1972 Norwegian European Communities membership referendum.

The "upper class" mentality of the western Oslo society is evident, and Kim describes how his sentiments gradually shift to the left.

Much of the story centers round Kim`s uncle Hubert, a con artist, who specializes in faking the great ones, like Picasso, while playing insane.

Gunnar was connected to the left-wing movement Workers' Communist Party (AKP-(ml) in Norwegian) until the death of John Lennon in 1980.

And barely mentioned, that Kim really lived most of his life at a ward for mentally distorted, something even Gunnar denies at the end, trusting Kim´s Rongbuk postcard more than the asylum priest.

The "mystery tour" is Kim's journey through the land of the dead, referencing both Peer Gynt and Divina Commedia.