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3.88 AVERAGE
3.88 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
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
Poignant, thought-provoking and deeply affecting collection of short stories about domestic lives and the emotions beneath the surface. Originally written in the 1950s/60s and recently translated into English.
Excellent writing, with a typically bleak Nordic Noir style, exploring identity and societal norms, hopes, expectations and stereotypes.
Excellent writing, with a typically bleak Nordic Noir style, exploring identity and societal norms, hopes, expectations and stereotypes.
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
medium-paced
challenging
reflective
sad
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
Short stories about everyday mundane life. Tove has a way do describe boring everyday details in such a way that just existing feels like a waste of time. I could relate to some of the stories, but some felt so foreign because I do not live my life like that exactly because of the way she describes them.
This book is super heartbreaking and real... I guess main topics are marriage, children, domestic life, what do we really want at the end of the day? What we do to other people? Selfishness? I never want to get married after this... cue Suburban House by Holly Macve and Lana.. CRYYY
I felt more in these short stories, like five pages, then I have in some other full-length novels. They're haunting and quick and sharp like a sneak attack; her writing is so good. My favorites were The Cat (surprise), My Wife Doesn't Dance, Life's Persistence, Queen of the Night (this one, this one she needs to listen to Super Graphic Ultra Modern girl by Chappell Roan and get the fuck OUT OF DODGE!!!), A Nice Boy (JOHNNNN), & A Fine Business.
And I believe that we gain things from relationships, great things, but God, all these women seem to do is lose, themselves, parts of themselves, their hope... which I guess we can all slip into if we aren't careful... as Yola said, it ain't easier....
ENTYWAYSSS it was really good if you, like me, are planning on walking down the aisle in sunglasses to hide your tears a la Joan Didion because YOU. DON'T. WANNA. (you think? HELP!)
"He was only loving if she kept it easy and ephemeral."
"And Henny actually had tears in her eyes too. Henny went over and put her arms around her, and some of the icy crust melted, and it was soft and bright inside her for a moment, and she would remember that for the rest of her life. She had never felt anything like it. She was only visiting her sister, whose husband she couldn't stand because there was so much noise and laughter around him."
"With a little poke in her side, her husband reminded her about his warning against any show of excitement. She blushed a little. It wasn't easy for her to hide her feelings."
"She hadn't bought cigarettes after all. She didn't want to smoke. She had just hoped that she would meet someone, anyone she could talk to, and in whose eyes she could see herself... No one really knows the impression they make on others, and likewise, Edith couldn't say what impact others had on her."
"And a young woman met him and knew something about him which Edith had forgotten- or maybe never knew. Because we only bring out in others what we need ourselves."
I felt more in these short stories, like five pages, then I have in some other full-length novels. They're haunting and quick and sharp like a sneak attack; her writing is so good. My favorites were The Cat (surprise), My Wife Doesn't Dance, Life's Persistence, Queen of the Night (this one, this one she needs to listen to Super Graphic Ultra Modern girl by Chappell Roan and get the fuck OUT OF DODGE!!!), A Nice Boy (JOHNNNN), & A Fine Business.
And I believe that we gain things from relationships, great things, but God, all these women seem to do is lose, themselves, parts of themselves, their hope... which I guess we can all slip into if we aren't careful... as Yola said, it ain't easier....
ENTYWAYSSS it was really good if you, like me, are planning on walking down the aisle in sunglasses to hide your tears a la Joan Didion because YOU. DON'T. WANNA. (you think? HELP!)
"He was only loving if she kept it easy and ephemeral."
"And Henny actually had tears in her eyes too. Henny went over and put her arms around her, and some of the icy crust melted, and it was soft and bright inside her for a moment, and she would remember that for the rest of her life. She had never felt anything like it. She was only visiting her sister, whose husband she couldn't stand because there was so much noise and laughter around him."
"With a little poke in her side, her husband reminded her about his warning against any show of excitement. She blushed a little. It wasn't easy for her to hide her feelings."
"She hadn't bought cigarettes after all. She didn't want to smoke. She had just hoped that she would meet someone, anyone she could talk to, and in whose eyes she could see herself... No one really knows the impression they make on others, and likewise, Edith couldn't say what impact others had on her."
"And a young woman met him and knew something about him which Edith had forgotten- or maybe never knew. Because we only bring out in others what we need ourselves."
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-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
An unsettling collection of Scandi-domestic-noir short stories, mainly featuring unhappy women and unfeeling men. Husbands and wives are strangers to each other, homes are minefields, children are screwed up, happiness is always beyond reach.
The characters are often not named or described, and there’s little sense of time or place, and little action - it’s mostly interiors and interiority. Despite this semblance of intimacy, the reader is kept at a distance by the sparse, dispassionate style. Ditlevsen doesn’t try to elicit sympathy, and oddly enough the stories are more powerful for her matter-of-fact presentation.
I’ll be honest, I didn’t enjoy this volume to start with. I found it too cold, stark, nihilistic. The stories are very short so it’s easy to race through them, but the unrelenting unhappiness left me feeling even more sad and hopeless than usual. I found that the secret was only to read only two or three at a time, and slowly. Then I started to appreciate the nuance and the author’s craft much more, and was glad I did.
And then the final story, ‘The trouble with happiness’... Entirely different from what’s gone before, so just when you’ve got used to the clinical descriptions of nameless sorrowful others, there’s a very personal first person narrative, a complete tonal shift charged with huge emotional power that took this reader completely by surprise. The same themes of alienation and loss, but also a young woman taking charge of her life, becoming independent, succeeding as a writer - a master-stroke. I immediately wanted to go back and read the preceding stories again in this new context.
I knew nothing about Tove Ditlevsen, but from a quick scan of Wikipedia, she was a prolific author and poet, very popular in Denmark in her lifetime, and something of a feminist icon. Married four times, she was in and out of psychiatric hospitals as an adult, had alcohol and drug issues and committed suicide by overdose aged 58, none of which comes as a huge surprise.
Life can be lonely, empty and joyless - best make it into art (note to self).
The characters are often not named or described, and there’s little sense of time or place, and little action - it’s mostly interiors and interiority. Despite this semblance of intimacy, the reader is kept at a distance by the sparse, dispassionate style. Ditlevsen doesn’t try to elicit sympathy, and oddly enough the stories are more powerful for her matter-of-fact presentation.
I’ll be honest, I didn’t enjoy this volume to start with. I found it too cold, stark, nihilistic. The stories are very short so it’s easy to race through them, but the unrelenting unhappiness left me feeling even more sad and hopeless than usual. I found that the secret was only to read only two or three at a time, and slowly. Then I started to appreciate the nuance and the author’s craft much more, and was glad I did.
And then the final story, ‘The trouble with happiness’... Entirely different from what’s gone before, so just when you’ve got used to the clinical descriptions of nameless sorrowful others, there’s a very personal first person narrative, a complete tonal shift charged with huge emotional power that took this reader completely by surprise. The same themes of alienation and loss, but also a young woman taking charge of her life, becoming independent, succeeding as a writer - a master-stroke. I immediately wanted to go back and read the preceding stories again in this new context.
I knew nothing about Tove Ditlevsen, but from a quick scan of Wikipedia, she was a prolific author and poet, very popular in Denmark in her lifetime, and something of a feminist icon. Married four times, she was in and out of psychiatric hospitals as an adult, had alcohol and drug issues and committed suicide by overdose aged 58, none of which comes as a huge surprise.
Life can be lonely, empty and joyless - best make it into art (note to self).
dark
reflective
sad
tense
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I enjoyed this. It’s like a snapshot of a reality and it’s surrounding emotions.