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A review by pewterwolf
The Danish Girl by David Ebershoff
2.0
Review Taken From The Pewter Wolf
Based very loosely on the lives of danish artists, Lili Elbe and Gerda Wegener. It looks at a marriage and the story of Lili, pioneer in transgender history.
Now, I am going to admit that I struggled while writing this write-up. Its hard to put into words my feelings over this as, while I believe the story is interesting and important, I have equal feeling towards it that it annoyed me and the story missed the point.
I have read other reviews and I know I am one of the few int he minority, but I am going to be honest about my thoughts and feelings about this.
There were elements of the writing that reminded me of The Hours by Michael Cunningham. I can't put my finger on why I kept drawing comparisons between the two, but my mind kept going there. And there were moments where words and lines just flowed.
However, I struggled with this at times too. There were times, I found the writing and the way the narrator read the story hard work and, on two or three occasions, I considered quitting. It felt like hard work to like the characters when the story was doing no favours for them.
But my biggest issue, the thing I had the most problems over, was how the issue of transgender was handled. I completely understand why the author wrote Lili and Einar as separate characters - but I fear some readers will struggle with this. But my biggest things was how this was handled. It was written in a way that, I fear, would make the reader feel that, instead of reading a book about a person who is transgender, they are reading a character who is suffering from a mental health issue, such a split personality disorder.
And I say this because there was one or two times, I felt like I wasn't reading someone who was transgender and I was going "Nononono!" over how this was handled. I wasn't happy over it!
I do want to watch the movie when it comes out on DVD so my opinion might change. But I wasn't a fan of this story, and I believe the movie might tell this story better.
Based very loosely on the lives of danish artists, Lili Elbe and Gerda Wegener. It looks at a marriage and the story of Lili, pioneer in transgender history.
Now, I am going to admit that I struggled while writing this write-up. Its hard to put into words my feelings over this as, while I believe the story is interesting and important, I have equal feeling towards it that it annoyed me and the story missed the point.
I have read other reviews and I know I am one of the few int he minority, but I am going to be honest about my thoughts and feelings about this.
There were elements of the writing that reminded me of The Hours by Michael Cunningham. I can't put my finger on why I kept drawing comparisons between the two, but my mind kept going there. And there were moments where words and lines just flowed.
However, I struggled with this at times too. There were times, I found the writing and the way the narrator read the story hard work and, on two or three occasions, I considered quitting. It felt like hard work to like the characters when the story was doing no favours for them.
But my biggest issue, the thing I had the most problems over, was how the issue of transgender was handled. I completely understand why the author wrote Lili and Einar as separate characters - but I fear some readers will struggle with this. But my biggest things was how this was handled. It was written in a way that, I fear, would make the reader feel that, instead of reading a book about a person who is transgender, they are reading a character who is suffering from a mental health issue, such a split personality disorder.
And I say this because there was one or two times, I felt like I wasn't reading someone who was transgender and I was going "Nononono!" over how this was handled. I wasn't happy over it!
I do want to watch the movie when it comes out on DVD so my opinion might change. But I wasn't a fan of this story, and I believe the movie might tell this story better.