Oppstandelse is a wide-ranging epic novel in two parts. It is about two couples in an open relationship. We meet four more or less equal main characters who all make themselves heard in their own way.

This novel is something between a novel of ideas and a psychological study. It starts in the 1980's with a group of friends who find their salvation when they discover shared joy and musical solace within the context of the Pentecostal movement, which they are led to by the main character David's excessively ecstatic and paralysing meeting with The Saviour. David experiences the same excess as an artist and through living in an open relationship where partner-swapping and sexual experimentation are important ingredients.

David is married to Vilde, who works as an art historian at the university and who shares David's free sexual boundaries in an apparently harmonious marriage.

In part two, David and Vilde have sex with the married couple Kim and Kamilla. Kim is Vilde's former lover. Kamilla has never taken part in such activities before, but is challenged and drawn in by the project's breaking of personal boundaries.

Eivind Buene brings out interesting social trends in this novel, which contains shades of both Philip Roth and Michel Houellebecq.

'Oppstandelse by Eivind Buenes is a well written and original novel of ideas … This is good literature, free of moralism and clear answers. Searching and well written.'
VÅRT LAND