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A review by egyptiaca
The Copenhagen Trilogy: Childhood; Youth; Dependency by Tove Ditlevsen
4.0
This memoir should include a trigger warning but then that would spoil the momentum.
I could converse about Danish author Tove Ditlevsen (1918-1976) for hours. What a woman she was! Like many female authors from the past, she was way ahead of her times. I could comically say, as to be submerged in her manner, (I even watched a documentary I found of her because I needed to witness her idiosyncrasies), she was somehow an advocate for open relationships and polygamous love. “Marriage should have three people involved and not only two”. An echelon for women liberation. “Men want their women to massage them, to take care of them, when they’re tired tending children and doing housework”. And a passionate lover (perhaps her only real, lasting love) of the art of writing. Some who knew her thought she was insane. Or brilliant. Well, those two are often parallels.
The Copenhagen Trilogy is the junction of memoirs Ditlevsen wrote on her life from 1967 to 1971. Characterized by a “matter-of-fact”, flatten prose, almost infantile, lacking of embellishment or beauty, it could be felt as devoid of emotion. Nevertheless, I was somehow deeply moved by it, and couldn’t help but admire her frankness and facetious honesty. It’s also filed with cinematographic imagery. I could watch a vivid film of it developing through my eyes.
While reading the last book, I needed to pause from time to time. I really felt the desolation taking over.
In Childhood, she relates of her first years of her life. Born “in a little two-room apartment in Vesterbro in Copenhagen”, a working-class neighborhood, just after the first World War. A child who often longed for the love and validation of a mother who was unable of opening up to her perhaps due to a “broken youth”, feeling trapped, engaged at the sweet age of 16. Tove was a sensitive child growing up in a narrow-minded household. But even in loneliness, that didn’t stop her calling to writing at the early age of 10.
In Youth, due to a lack of money, she had to forcibly quit school at the age of 14, and she went through many jobs as a clerk. She developed a cunning and practical sense of life, thriving at some places by imitating others and yet being dignified enough to not fall for their pretense. Got engaged at 17, and called it quits when an important man appeared to change her life forever. She found her niche among other writers and founded a club. Her first collection of poems, “Pigensen” was published.
Dependency came in a big, disconcerting wave. Darkness and grey growing inside her, silently, perhaps, building up from her childhood until this very moment. Ditlevsen got married four times, leaving his second husband, the father of her first daughter, by a disturbed doctor who introduced her to the poisonous “magic” of painkillers. The narrative moves through the annihilating storm and pain of her addiction.
I could converse about Danish author Tove Ditlevsen (1918-1976) for hours. What a woman she was! Like many female authors from the past, she was way ahead of her times. I could comically say, as to be submerged in her manner, (I even watched a documentary I found of her because I needed to witness her idiosyncrasies), she was somehow an advocate for open relationships and polygamous love. “Marriage should have three people involved and not only two”. An echelon for women liberation. “Men want their women to massage them, to take care of them, when they’re tired tending children and doing housework”. And a passionate lover (perhaps her only real, lasting love) of the art of writing. Some who knew her thought she was insane. Or brilliant. Well, those two are often parallels.
The Copenhagen Trilogy is the junction of memoirs Ditlevsen wrote on her life from 1967 to 1971. Characterized by a “matter-of-fact”, flatten prose, almost infantile, lacking of embellishment or beauty, it could be felt as devoid of emotion. Nevertheless, I was somehow deeply moved by it, and couldn’t help but admire her frankness and facetious honesty. It’s also filed with cinematographic imagery. I could watch a vivid film of it developing through my eyes.
While reading the last book, I needed to pause from time to time. I really felt the desolation taking over.
Spoiler
“Childhood must be endured and trudged through hour by hour, through an absolutely interminable number of years. Only death can free you from it, so you think a lot about death, and picture it as a white-robed, friendly angel who some night will kiss your eyelids so that they never will open again”.
In Childhood, she relates of her first years of her life. Born “in a little two-room apartment in Vesterbro in Copenhagen”, a working-class neighborhood, just after the first World War. A child who often longed for the love and validation of a mother who was unable of opening up to her perhaps due to a “broken youth”, feeling trapped, engaged at the sweet age of 16. Tove was a sensitive child growing up in a narrow-minded household. But even in loneliness, that didn’t stop her calling to writing at the early age of 10.
“I look at the dogs too, the dogs and their masters. Some of the dogs have a short leash that’s jerked impatiently every time they stop. Others have a long leash and their masters wait patiently whenever an exciting smell detains the dog. That’s the kind of master I want. That’s the kind of life I could thrive in. There are also the masterless dogs that run around confused between people’s legs, apparently without enjoying their freedom. I’m like that kind of masterless dog – scruffy, confused, and alone”.
In Youth, due to a lack of money, she had to forcibly quit school at the age of 14, and she went through many jobs as a clerk. She developed a cunning and practical sense of life, thriving at some places by imitating others and yet being dignified enough to not fall for their pretense. Got engaged at 17, and called it quits when an important man appeared to change her life forever. She found her niche among other writers and founded a club. Her first collection of poems, “Pigensen” was published.
“I lay motionless and limp in my bed and felt like I was being rocked to sleep in warm, green water. Nothing else in the world mattered to me but staying in this blissful state. I didn’t care anyway, because it was worth it. No price was too high to be able to keep away intolerable real life”.
Dependency came in a big, disconcerting wave. Darkness and grey growing inside her, silently, perhaps, building up from her childhood until this very moment. Ditlevsen got married four times, leaving his second husband, the father of her first daughter, by a disturbed doctor who introduced her to the poisonous “magic” of painkillers. The narrative moves through the annihilating storm and pain of her addiction.