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3.96 AVERAGE
3.96 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
slow-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
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
fast-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
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
reflective
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
“She felt the blood shoot up to her cheeks. She no longer belonged to herself. No matter where she sought refuge, people had unashamedly formed an image of her over which she had no control.”
"It was still raining outside. It was raining from a sky that she would never see again. It was the sky of her childhood, and the evening star pricked a hole in it with a bright, delicate light that flooded the windowsill in her bedroom where she sat with legs drawn up and lost herself in gentle dreams. Behind her was the darkness and the fear and the smell of sweat, sleep, and dust. Behind her was the bed with its heavy, clammy quilt that was like the lid on a coffin. Behind her were her father's and mother's woolen nighttime voices from the world of sex, which she didn't understand. Behind her was the imprisoned night, fermenting like a sealed jar of jam that no air could reach."
If you are not familiar with Tove Ditlevsen's Copenhagen Trilogy, I implore you to read this set of three memoirs before The Faces. The last instalment, Dependency, details the author's painful and tumultuous descent into drug addiction and her time hospitalised. Although labelled as fiction, it is not difficult to see much of the author’s personal experiences weaved into The Faces.
Ditlevsen's bitingly sharp prose is overlaid with a nightmarish sheen. The protagonist, Lise, is admitted into a mental hospital due to an overdose. What follows is a hallucinatory narrative that portrays a woman on the cusp of mental instability, grief, fear and neglect. The inferiority complex is personified as more than simply voices in the head, but flesh and bone faces gazing down on the protagonist. There's a sense of disembodiment that makes this novella all the more haunting. You question the very meaning of insanity, of critical judgement, of belonging to oneself.
I saw many similarities between this novella and The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, Girl, Interrupted, by Susanna Kaysen, and Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf.
"It was still raining outside. It was raining from a sky that she would never see again. It was the sky of her childhood, and the evening star pricked a hole in it with a bright, delicate light that flooded the windowsill in her bedroom where she sat with legs drawn up and lost herself in gentle dreams. Behind her was the darkness and the fear and the smell of sweat, sleep, and dust. Behind her was the bed with its heavy, clammy quilt that was like the lid on a coffin. Behind her were her father's and mother's woolen nighttime voices from the world of sex, which she didn't understand. Behind her was the imprisoned night, fermenting like a sealed jar of jam that no air could reach."
If you are not familiar with Tove Ditlevsen's Copenhagen Trilogy, I implore you to read this set of three memoirs before The Faces. The last instalment, Dependency, details the author's painful and tumultuous descent into drug addiction and her time hospitalised. Although labelled as fiction, it is not difficult to see much of the author’s personal experiences weaved into The Faces.
Ditlevsen's bitingly sharp prose is overlaid with a nightmarish sheen. The protagonist, Lise, is admitted into a mental hospital due to an overdose. What follows is a hallucinatory narrative that portrays a woman on the cusp of mental instability, grief, fear and neglect. The inferiority complex is personified as more than simply voices in the head, but flesh and bone faces gazing down on the protagonist. There's a sense of disembodiment that makes this novella all the more haunting. You question the very meaning of insanity, of critical judgement, of belonging to oneself.
I saw many similarities between this novella and The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, Girl, Interrupted, by Susanna Kaysen, and Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf.