Why singer-songwriter Chris Velan is enjoying the mind-bending Norwegian thriller Encircling
Known for his bare-bones ballads, Montreal singer-songwriter and producer Chris Velan has played at prestigious venues such as The Lincoln Center, Sundance Festival, Montreal International Jazz Festival and Osheaga. In 2016, his song Un-American Gothic, from his most recent album Glow, was recognised in CBC Music's Top 100 Songs List for 2016.
Velan is reading Norwegian author Carl Frode Tiller's Encircling, in which a man with amnesia asks those close to him him to help him to rediscover his identity.
An unconventional mystery
"This book is about someone who's lost their memory and has put out an ad to find friends and family who can share their recollections of him so he can reconstruct his identity. The main character is named David but we actually never meet him. We only get to know him through the recollections of family and friends."
Self interest and memory
"We see that these same recollections of the same events are conflicting with each other and are being delivered through the imperfect filters of their recollection. They're the victims of their own secrets, lies and self-serving memories basically. So it's very unresolved and, at times, very uncomfortable to read this because we don't get any sort of closure."
On not knowing
"You can read so much and know so little. That it is the same in life: we can live so long and know so little about each other, and about ourselves. It's a disorienting proposition but one that I really am charged by."
Chris Velan's comments have been edited and condensed.