Åndalsnes is both a remembered family landscape and the place where Olav Hole wants to be buried. For Harry Hole, his father’s wish makes the town more than a point on a map: it brings back childhood routines, an absent father, and the possibility that a place can remain a source of belonging even after it has been left behind.

A place of return

During a conversation about his burial, Olav tells Harry that he wants to be buried in Åndalsnes. Harry asks why he does not want to be buried in the city, where his mother lies. Olav’s answer is that he wants to lie among his own people; Harry objects that his father does not know them. The exchange leaves their ideas of home in tension: for Harry, burial seems tied to the family already known and mourned, while Olav’s wish reaches toward a community and past he has chosen to reclaim.

Childhood memories

Åndalsnes returns to Harry through memories of Easter holidays spent with his parents in Lesja and of setting out before dawn to fish with his grandfather. His father never joined those fishing trips. Looking back, Harry wonders why he had accepted that absence without question, and whether even as a five-year-old he understood that Olav had trained for another life and left the farm so he would not have to remain in the boat. The remembered journeys therefore carry a quiet division: Harry and his grandfather share a routine rooted in the place, while his father stands outside it.

Belonging and the end of life

Olav’s request changes the meaning of that old absence. The man who had left the farm now wants to spend eternity among the people associated with it, although Harry doubts that he truly knows them. As Harry sits alone on a balcony after a conversation with Kaja Solness, the memory of fishing at dawn returns alongside his father’s wish. He reflects on the strangeness of life and, especially, death. Åndalsnes thus gathers together departure and return: it is not presented as a simple homecoming, but as the place where the father’s final desire forces Harry to reconsider what home and family belonging mean.