A review by dylan2219
Childhood, Youth, Dependency: The Copenhagen Trilogy by Tove Ditlevsen

dark emotional reflective slow-paced

4.75

It begins as a wonderfully confessional reflection on a life, and then begins the most dramatic descent into hell imaginable by the end. Writing this must have been actual torture, especially as it seems like Ditlevsen never really kicked the habit of her addictions. the novel questions if one ever can do so. What interested me is how inarticulate she often is about her decision-making; she is reflective, and detailed, but not insightful, and the book is propelled by this constant feeling of the present even though we know we are sitting through memories. It creates a strange, ghostly atmosphere, yet also establishes the fundamental incomprehensibility of where her story goes. Because it is incomprehensible, who could ever explain such a thing. 
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