Hanne Ørstavik: Love, transl. Martin Aitken
A single mother arrives home tired but quietly triumphant after doing her first presentation at her new workplace. Her eight-year-old son is waiting for her, listening to every step as she walks in and starts cooking. They have dinner and some conversation, but each is wrapped up in their own thoughts and dreams. They only have each other, since they moved away from town, from the boy’s father. The mother settles down with a book and dozes off, the boy goes out to sell raffle tickets. The mother wakes up and decides to slip out to the library herself, believing her son is safely tucked in bed. And so they narrowly miss each other on this winter night in a village in Northern Norway.
It’s difficult and probably unwise not to read Hanne Ørstavik’s slim novel all in one gulp. You need to go somewhere with that sense of foreboding, the crescendo of compassion, pity and dread, the certainty that something bad will happen to Vibeke and her young son Jon as they wander about their village that evening like lost souls. Every mention of the birthday cake that the little boy keeps hoping that his mother will bake for him pierced my heart. Every time Vibeke looks at herself in the mirror, dreams of being admired and loved, is almost desperate to become visible in some way, my skin tingled in recognition and pity. I doubt I would have been able to keep on reading with such physical discomfort if the book had been any longer, or if I’d had to go back to it in dribs and drabs.
Both the title and the character of Vibeke have provoked debate on the Asymptote Book Club discussion thread. Why ‘love’ when the book shows us such an imperfect example of it, perhaps almost the absence of it? To my mind, both Jon and Vibeke are searching for love, desperate for it to the point of naivety and reckless endangerment. The love that they get from one another is not quite enough to fill this deep hole in the centre of their lives. The father would not have filled the hole either. They are both dreamers, they both desire something that they have never experienced but that they haven’t quite lost hope of finding, despite countless disappointments. The tragedy is that they are not quite aware of this hunger in themselves, so they cannot talk to each other about it, and not just because of the age gap.
I remember an instructor at a poetry workshop saying that we should never talk about love, hearts and the moon, as it is far too easy to descend into sentimentality and cliché. This book talks about all three but manages to avoid that dishonourable fate. How does it do that? Firstly, the style is unadorned and kept deliberately detached. Third person, moving swiftly from Jon to Vibeke’s point of view, but without dwelling on their emotions. Everything is implied in their reactions and gestures rather than through authorial intervention or judgement. At first I thought that the style alternated between long and short sentences, but in fact even the long sentences are often made up of short, coordinated clauses, loosely linked through commas. This, together with the use of the present tense, gives a breathless quality to the narration which contrasts with the cold observation. This really helps in the build-up of suspense, plus author selects just the right amount of telling details to give us a precise, almost step-by-step description of events which never feels repetitive.
I’ve read some great reviews of the book already by Asymptote Book Club subscribers. Ali comments on how love can be both good and terrible. Old Books Abe describes the feeling of helplessly watching the characters fall into peril behind a layer of ice, unable to stop it. Enrico Cioni is fascinated by Vibeke and compares the book to other two recent translations Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin and Die, My Love by Ariana Harwitz. I also found a resemblance to Elena Ferrante’s Days of Abandonment – that same almost animal instinct for surviving pain, of blessed temporary selfishness, but set in a tighter-lipped, colder climate. For another powerful example of Ørstavik’s understated and elliptical style, see The Blue Room.
findingtimetowrite 
This does sound like a powerful read, Marina Sofia. It sounds, too, like one of those books that stays with a person long after reading. It takes talent to pack that much power in a small book…
Indeed – after reading that, you feel like saying to any 600+ page book: ‘Get to the point!’
This book will undoubtedly be one of my favourites of the year. We really feel for both mother & son. I liked the way that Ørstavik fed us details that would make us fear what was going to happen to the two. There were stock creepy characters such as the old man living on his own, the solitary male (?) car driver, the fairground man etc.
Yes, all of the stock characters and stereotypes were subverted – very cleverly done, very much like a horror film, when you watch someone going about their everyday business in their house and you just know their routing is going to be interrupted tragically!
Wonderful review, Marina. Ørstavik’s writing style sounds particularly powerful.
One that can be read at many levels – as a ‘psychological thriller’ even (although I am really glad they didn’t market it as such!)
I read it in one sitting and found it really moving. It’s beautifully written.
Breathtaking confidence from a young writer in her debut novel!
This book is getting *such* a lot of blog love at the moment. Definitely sounds like one you can’t put down once you start…
You know I’m not too fond of buzzy books, but this is one of those coolly devastating reads that deserves the buzz. (More amazing still, it was the author’s debut novel.)
I really wish I had read it in one go. A beautiful brutal book. It made me sad, but what great writing.
This sounds excellent, I’m reading all the reviews with interest. I read The Blue Room in one go and it sounds as if the author’s style works well with that approach.
Good review – now I want to read it too. Another on for the TBR!