Kare Sverdrup

Kare Sverdrup is Tina Lund’s boyfriend, the man she loves, and the intended destination of the choice she gradually makes about her private life. The novel gives little direct access to him: readers see him chiefly through Tina’s reflections and through a few decisive actions at Sveggesundet. That limited presence matters. Kare’s importance is established less by a portrait of his inner life than by the way Tina’s recognition of her love for him changes her course—and by the catastrophe that interrupts their attempt to meet.

Relationship with Tina Lund

At first Kare appears in the thoughts of Sigur Johanson, who tries to reach Tina and imagines her with Kare when she does not answer. This is Johanson’s supposition, not a confirmed account of where Tina is. His imagined scene nevertheless reveals how he understands the emotional stakes: Tina is not simply someone he might pursue, because her relationship with Kare is already part of the situation between them.

When Tina asks about the possibility of going with Johanson, he brings Kare into the conversation and questions what Kare would think. Tina insists that she does not need Kare’s permission, but Johanson is wary of becoming responsible for misunderstandings. The exchange establishes a tension between Tina’s independence and the obligations of an existing relationship. It does not make Kare an active participant in their discussion; instead, his absence gives him a consequential place in it.

Later, Tina explains that she had hoped to get away from Kare, but that she fell in love with him. She distinguishes that love from her earlier closeness with Johanson: she and Johanson had been near to beginning something, but neither had wanted a serious commitment, and she had not been in love with him. Meeting Kare changed the terms of her private life. Tina says her feelings made it difficult to concentrate on her work, a disruption she recognizes as unlike herself. Kare’s significance is thus expressed through a change in Tina, not through any claim about his own intentions or character.

Johanson’s Advice and Tina’s Decision

Johanson does not encourage Tina to choose him. Reflecting on their weekend by the lake, he tells her that a relationship and a career can coexist, while acknowledging that her circumstances with Kare remain uncertain. Tina says that she and Kare have seen little of each other since she and Johanson became close. She also doubts whether the romantic feeling associated with returning to a beautiful place can survive ordinary life there. Her uncertainty concerns not only whom she loves, but whether an idealized moment can become a durable everyday relationship.

Johanson reads her hesitation as a decision she has nearly made but has not yet admitted to herself. He advises her to tell Kare that she loves him and wants to be with him. When Tina worries that it might not work out, Johanson urges her not to let suspicion of happiness decide for her. His intervention is important because he recognizes Kare’s claim on Tina even while acknowledging the intimacy between himself and her. He helps turn the triangle away from an unspoken possibility between himself and Tina and toward a direct attempt to choose Kare.

The choice becomes practical when Tina considers her work. If Clifford Stone goes to the slope, she will have to go to Stavanger and prepare a detailed report; the research vessel Thorvaldson is ready to sail, and Stone might leave within a day or two. Tina sees that the Stavanger assignment may leave her a few days to drive to Sveggesundet and do some work there. She says she will think about it and speak with Finn Skaugen. Later she tells Johanson that his advice helped her decide to see Kare and to see things differently. The change is not merely a declaration of feeling: she makes a plan that fits a meeting with him into the demands of her work.

The Planned Reunion at Sveggesundet

After dealing with Stone, Tina calls Kare and offers to spend a few days with him on the coast. He seems pleased, though somewhat bewildered. His reaction is reported briefly, without an account of what he makes of Tina’s earlier uncertainty. Tina takes something in his voice as a sign that Johanson may have been right and that she has settled on the right course in time.

She drives Johanson’s jeep through the rain to Sveggesundet, feeling increasingly relieved as the kilometres pass. The intended meeting place is the Fiskehuset, beside a shore of moss-covered boulders and stone slabs. Tina arrives an hour early, partly because she has driven fast. Kare is out on business in town, the restaurant has not begun serving, and a kitchen assistant cannot say when he will return. Tina recognizes that she has arrived before the agreed time and waits rather than treating his absence as a refusal. The scene makes the reunion concrete but incomplete: she has chosen to come, yet the two have not met.

The Tsunami and the Missed Encounter

As the tsunami approaches, Tina reaches a fork in the path. One direction leads toward the car park and Johanson’s jeep; the other leads back to the Fiskehuset. She believes Kare is there, waiting, and decides she cannot leave him alone. The choice brings her earlier decision into immediate physical danger: instead of taking the route toward the vehicle, she runs toward the restaurant, trying to reach Kare before the wave.

The terrace door opens and Kare rushes out, then freezes. Tina calls his name, but the wind and the wave drown her voice. He begins to run and disappears around the side of the building. A moment later she hears an engine, and his car speeds up the road toward the hill. Tina believes he must have seen her, but the narration makes clear that he has not. The scene confirms neither an intentional rejection nor an exchange between them: Kare does not hear her, and the two fail to meet at the moment Tina has risked everything to reach him. The evidence presented here does not establish what happens to Kare afterward.

Narrative Significance

Kare is a largely unseen character whose narrative weight comes from the contrast between Tina’s clear recognition of love and the failure of their planned reunion. Before the disaster, his presence helps define the boundary Johanson refuses to cross and gives Tina a future she chooses to pursue. At Sveggesundet, the Fiskehuset, the road, and the car make that future briefly tangible. Then the tsunami converts a decision about love into a question of escape, and the lovers’ near-encounter ends in separation rather than resolution. Kare’s limited characterization should not be mistaken for evidence that he is indifferent: the account shows that he is pleased by Tina’s offer, but leaves his thoughts and the outcome of his flight unreported.