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krista_lm 's review for:
Is Mother Dead
by Vigdis Hjorth
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
This book.
This BOOK.
About seven pages in, I had to set it down and do some intentional breathing.
About nine pages in, I let out a curse.
About thirty pages in, I found myself frantically googling an article I'd read about memory and how it's possible for the same event to be remembered differently.
Let me be clear.
This story is not my story. But it immediately brought me back to how I felt in childhood and still feel sometimes.
It was uncanny in the best way.
Reading stories about family trauma and difficult relationships is cathartic for me in an "I'm not alone nor crazy after all" sort of way.
This book was that for me. I sat and cried for several minutes at the ending (which the author nailed by the way).
The writing is incredible, the author seems to have an obvious talent for writing about family trauma, and I must not neglect to stand in awe of the translator as well. I cannot imagine the punch this novel packs in its original language if it punches this hard in English.
It has been longlisted for the 2023 International Booker Prize (at the time of this review), and it's my first read of the lot. Off to a great start!
_________________________________
".. like we all carry our mothers like a hole in our souls, small or big, living or dead, and so we all try to fill these voids so we can live or we reject our mothers, but then - if we think we have succeeded - we have to live with the guilt of having rejected them. There is no freedom without guilt, and, by the way, you were born guilty, you became guilty even as a child because of your family trauma and you passed on your pain to your sister or your doll which was damaged by being with you, trapped in a room in a house with a door too small to get out of, where every attempt would be a bloody, probably fatal, venture, but I blew up the door and it was bloody and now I'm here, in a cabin in the forest with an elk." (238-239)
This BOOK.
About seven pages in, I had to set it down and do some intentional breathing.
About nine pages in, I let out a curse.
About thirty pages in, I found myself frantically googling an article I'd read about memory and how it's possible for the same event to be remembered differently.
Let me be clear.
This story is not my story. But it immediately brought me back to how I felt in childhood and still feel sometimes.
It was uncanny in the best way.
Reading stories about family trauma and difficult relationships is cathartic for me in an "I'm not alone nor crazy after all" sort of way.
This book was that for me. I sat and cried for several minutes at the ending (which the author nailed by the way).
The writing is incredible, the author seems to have an obvious talent for writing about family trauma, and I must not neglect to stand in awe of the translator as well. I cannot imagine the punch this novel packs in its original language if it punches this hard in English.
It has been longlisted for the 2023 International Booker Prize (at the time of this review), and it's my first read of the lot. Off to a great start!
_________________________________
".. like we all carry our mothers like a hole in our souls, small or big, living or dead, and so we all try to fill these voids so we can live or we reject our mothers, but then - if we think we have succeeded - we have to live with the guilt of having rejected them. There is no freedom without guilt, and, by the way, you were born guilty, you became guilty even as a child because of your family trauma and you passed on your pain to your sister or your doll which was damaged by being with you, trapped in a room in a house with a door too small to get out of, where every attempt would be a bloody, probably fatal, venture, but I blew up the door and it was bloody and now I'm here, in a cabin in the forest with an elk." (238-239)