Childhood, Youth, Dependency

so beautiful and moving. you can tell tove ditlevsen is a poet from the very beginning. "in the morning there was hope" . what a beautiful way to start this series - especially a book focusing primarily on her childhood - and set the scene for what's to come: the beauty of the morning before anything is disturbed, before tove's mother sets her eyes on her daughter, before everything turns bleak and chaotic. i have to admit, when i went into this the fact that this is a memoir flew completely over my head, but it's written in a way that makes it so accessible that it almost feels fictional. it's a very fast and short read, but that makes it by no means less insightful. the first part of the book, especially, is written in such a way that reflects the world as seen through the eyes of a child, who, although perceptive, can only explain some things in ways that only a child can. in this sense, i can understand why it’s often recommended for fans of elena ferrante’s neapolitan quartet. i loved the underlying theme of childhood feeling both oppressive and then beautiful and desirable once you manage to grow out of it. Childhood is long and narrow like a coffin, and you can’t get out of it on your own. [...] my childhood falls silently to the bottom of my memory, that library of the soul from which I will draw knowledge and experience for the rest of my life. tove's constant feeling of alienation, of feeling left out, and incapable of fitting in the way everyone else does is, i think, resonating with many, and as usual with stories like this i think there's some comfort in looking at the memoirs of someone who grew up a hundred years ago and realise that in many ways we struggle with similar issues. of course, tove's story is very much influenced by the historical and societal context of the time (post-ww1, a very patriarchal society), but even so, her thoughts and musings are very much in line with someone trying to make sense and find their place in the world. finally, i think the way her complicated relationship with her mother - exacerbated by her mother's constantly changing moods - is depicted is devastating but done beautifully. we get a glimpse of this tumultuous relationship from the very beginning and it doesn't give out till the very end. i was especially struck by this passage: I look up at her and understand many things at once. She is smaller than other adult women, younger than other mothers, and there’s a world outside my street that she fears. And whenever we both fear it together, she will stab me in the back. anyway, this is all to say that i loved it, and can't wait to see what the second book has in store ---- “Being young is itself temporary, fragile, and ephemeral. You have to get through it–it has no other meaning.” a solid 3.5, although i didn’t find this second installment in the Copenhagen Trilogy as gripping as the first. as tove grows up, and her desire for emancipation and becoming a published poet becomes more acute, the book itself becomes more like a chronicle of events, and is less focused on her musings of the world around her, which i had deeply enjoyed in the first novel. still, this was an easy, short read, and i’m curious to see how the last installment shapes up to be. --- i think more than the other books in this series, this one really reads like a memoir. as the title suggests, it deals a lot with addiction, especially in the second part, which was tough to get through. in terms of the way this is written, again, just as in the last one, if felt more like a chronicle of events, but it’s also understandable why. there’s both a certain coldness to the writing, to the way ditlevsen describes her life, of her actions, and those of the people close to her, but there’s also i think an underlying compassion to it all. we do harm on others, even the ones we love, and they do harm on us. i have to sit with it for a while i think. i do wish the ending hadn’t felt so rushed, the meeting with victor felt sudden and almost unexplained, but maybe that was the point (i assume at the moment of publication they were still together). please do be warned that this deals a lot with addiction, and goes in detail in the second part into these episodes, as well as the time spent in the rehab centre.