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3.96 AVERAGE
3.96 AVERAGE
dark
sad
tense
medium-paced
Sprachlich wuchtig, hundertbödig, bildreich, auch der Plot war interessant. Habe mir das Buch gekauft, weil die Trilogie mir auf einmal ein zu großes commitment war, aber es mir auch zu riskant schien, nur einen Teil zu kaufen (keine deutsche Buchhandlung in der Nähe). Werde sie mir jetzt hiernach aber eher nicht kaufen. Es ist alles sehr beeindruckend usw aber auch irgendwie zu... gekünstelt?
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
emotional
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
challenging
dark
emotional
inspiring
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Mental illness
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
dark
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
emotional
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
dark
reflective
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
“Their faces were about to fall right off, and their frightened hands fumbled over them so that the unknown that was beneath the skin wouldn’t reveal itself to be a secret illness hiding behind what was visible to everyone.”
More than disembodied faces & voices haunt Lise, a famous writer, during a psychotic episode. Very much inspired by Ditlevsen’s life – the childhood poverty, writing fame, struggle with addiction – she took her real suffering & created a brief, disturbing account of a woman tormented by her own mind. Childhood loneliness tends to stay with people & Tove was a lonely, lonely child.
Having just read The Copenhagen Trilogy I spotted many details taken straight from those memoirs, down to a picture on the wall of Tove’s childhood living room, now hanging in Lise’s house. Her impoverished childhood created certain fears, but fame brings a new set of anxieties which can compound over time & the observant emotional detachment which has always been her shield against the world disintegrates, along with her mind. Truthful in the portrayal of someone who will always struggle with reality in some way.
Brutally concise (concisely brutal?). There are some amusing lines (“...her eyebrows grew together like a couple of girlfriends who can’t tear themselves away from each other.”), but it's mostly fast-paced madness. Trove’s prose is captivating, really beautiful. There are many extraordinary sentences here. This writing is nightmare & poetry woven together.
“But what was real in this world, and what was not real? Wasn’t it a kind of sickness that people could walk around holding onto their own ego? – that whole chaos of voices, faces, and memories that they only dared to let slip from themselves drop by drop, and never could be certain of retrieving again.”