A review by literarycrushes
The Copenhagen Trilogy: Childhood; Youth; Dependency by Tove Ditlevsen

3.0

   I’m not sure I would have picked this one on my own, but I did end up reading The Copenhagen Trilogy for a neighborhood book club. It’s a compendium of three novels (Childhood, Youth, and Dependency) written by Tove Ditlevsen and was originally published in Danish in the early 70s. From what I understand, it’s highly autobiographical. The novel follows Tove from her childhood years where she felt misunderstood and had a tumultuous relationship with her mother. The second book focuses on her relationships and marriages as she starts to see more success with her writing. The third book takes a much darker and wilder turn as Tove becomes addicted to a drug she was prescribed while getting an abortion and *Spoiler alert?* continues to struggle with for the rest of her life until she ultimately decides to commit suicide (which the author did in real life).
            The obvious comparison to this would be Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels. Both focus on women growing up in poor European families around the middle of the 20th century. The language often feels cold and stark, yet you do get a good sense of Tove’s complex interior life. The characters (especially her family) are very lifelike and her accounts of their struggles to get by were touching and is one I won’t soon forget. All in all, I was impressed but just didn’t connect with it enough to love it.