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The Copenhagen Trilogy #1
Childhood
The first volume in The Copenhagen Trilogy, the searing portrait of a woman's journey through love, friendship, ambition and addiction, from one of Denmark's most celebrated twentieth-century writers
Tove knows she is a misfit, whose childhood is made for a completely different girl. In her working-class neighbourhood in Copenhagen, she is enthralled by her wild, red-headed friend Ruth, who initiates her into adult secrets. But Tove cannot reveal her true self to her or to anyone else. For 'long, mysterious words begin to crawl across my soul', and she comes to realize that she has a vocation, something unknowable within her - and that she must one day, painfully but inevitably, leave the narrow street of her childhood behind.
Childhood, the first volume in The Copenhagen Trilogy, is a visceral portrait of girlhood and female friendship, told with lyricism and vivid intensity.
Tove knows she is a misfit, whose childhood is made for a completely different girl. In her working-class neighbourhood in Copenhagen, she is enthralled by her wild, red-headed friend Ruth, who initiates her into adult secrets. But Tove cannot reveal her true self to her or to anyone else. For 'long, mysterious words begin to crawl across my soul', and she comes to realize that she has a vocation, something unknowable within her - and that she must one day, painfully but inevitably, leave the narrow street of her childhood behind.
Childhood, the first volume in The Copenhagen Trilogy, is a visceral portrait of girlhood and female friendship, told with lyricism and vivid intensity.
99 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1967
About the author
Tove Ditlevsen
105 books781 followersTove Ditlevsen var en dansk forfatter, som hentede inspiration i sit eget liv som kvinde. I sin digtning og som yndet brevkasseredaktør i Familie Journalen udfoldede hun en dyb psykologisk indsigt i moderne kvinders splittede liv. Hendes evne til at udtrykke sammensatte følelser i et enkelt og smukt sprog fik betydning for flere generationer af læsere.
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July 14, 2020
I carried the cups out of the kitchen, and inside of me long, mysterious words began to crawl across my soul like a protective membrane. A song, a poem, something soothing and rhythmic and immensely pensive, but never distressing or sad, as I knew the rest of my day would be distressing and sad. When these light waves of words streamed through me, I knew that my mother couldn’t do anything else to me because she had stopped being important to me.
Normally I tend to steer clear of childhood memoirs. I confess the prospect of possibly having to wrestle first through another bland recount of a period in life that I find only mildly interesting used to desist me from reading (auto)biographies in the past. Either I suspect such memories to be thoroughly miserable, or syrupy nostalgic, or self-aggrandising. An unhappy childhood is a writer’s goldmine (as amply illustrated by the novels of Patrick Modiano) and so I prefer to read the fictionalised rendition; pink-rimmed reminiscences tend to irritate me, as well as the adult version in hindsight allotting prodigious capacities to the child version. So I am not sure what made me bring this first volume of the memoirs of the Danish writer Tove Ditlevsen (1917-1976) from the library, but as it happens I did and I quite enjoyed reading it, mostly because of the very fine perceptive writing and the depiction of life in the 1920-30ies in Vesterbro, the working class neighbourhood in Kopenhagen where Tove Ditlevsen grew up. Evocative, poetic and intense – I read this slim book in one sitting despite having other plans (reading-wise and non-reading-wise). A wise observation of a friend on her review of Nathalie Sarraute’s Enfance recently made me realise I might have become less wary of reading about childhood now having attained a most comfortable distance from it.
The tender lavender coloured covers of Ditlevsen’s Copenhagen trilogy, each with a black and white photograph on it , could give the impression that her memoirs belong to the nostalgic category – which is, at least for the first volume, pretty deceptive. Her grandmother, telling stories, is a brief but warmly respected presence in the girl’s life and her relationship with her brother Edvin improves over time, but there is the aloof and bitter mother, the cramped living space, the heavy drinking of the men and numerous teenager pregnancies in the family and in the neighbourhood.
(Anna Ancher, At Noon, 1914)
As Childhood entails the memories of a budding poet and novelist – Ditlevsen started to write poems at the age of ten - the significant role of the written word, books, libraries in the young girl’s life is striking from the first chapter which illuminates the meaning of words to the six year old girl – their taste, their sound, their mysteries, their comfort – quite a few Danish writers crop up in her recount (Zakarias Nielsen, Vilhelm Bergsøe, Johannes V JensenAgnes Henningsen…).
What prompts a person to start writing, what makes one person wish to express emotions, thoughts, impressions in poetry while others don’t and won’t? Rather obviously there is the delicate, sensitive nature of the child, which here is so out of tune with the toughness of life and lack of perspective in the tenement block. There are the few books at home, the model of a reading father - a socialist losing his job because of his political activities - nolens volens triggering and inspiring her. From these first years arises the portrait of a perpetual outsider, the position of the misfit that drives one to the solace of words and writing – and an inward but intransigent rebelliousness against a fate that seems carved in stone, especially for girls who are too poor to continue studying and for who life at best has a marriage with ‘a stable skilled worker who comes right home with his weekly pay-check and doesn’t drink’ in store:
'Lamentation – what does that mean, Father?' I found the expression in Gorky and loved it. He considered this for a long time while he stroked the turned-up ends of his mustache. ‘It’s a Russian term’, he said then. ‘It means pain and misery and sorrow. Gorky was I great poet’. I said happily, ‘I want to be a poet too!’ Immediately he frowned and said severely, ‘Don’t be a fool! A girl can’t be a poet. Offended and hurt, I withdrew myself again while my mother and Edvin laughed at the crazy idea. I vowed never to reveal my dreams to anyone again, and I kept this vow throughout my childhood.
Reminding myself how I much I loved reading Maxim Gorky’s My Childhood – actually the perfect antidote to rebut my silly wee aversion of reading childhood memories - it struck me as particularly revelatory to encounter him again in Tove Ditlevsen’s memoirs.
Unlike the narrator, I have never experienced childhood as long and narrow like a coffin but I recall vividly how I also wished to grow up as soon as possible and shed that childhood odour from me. Equally, growing up with the stories my parents have told me about their childhood, their family circumstances and options at the age of fourteen (in 1960) quite alike those of Tove Ditlevsen, I cannot remember I had any dreams or aspirations at that age myself – but somehow, their stories favoured a lasting joy found in reading and learning.
(Anna Ancher, Sunlight in the blue room, 1891)
At the age of fourteen, Tove’s haste for leaving childhood behind and plunging into adult life has waned. The future is terrifying, ‘a monstrous, powerful colossus that will soon fall on me and crush me’. Her appreciation of childhood, which will stay a prominent topic in her writing, has changed:
Now the last remnants fall away from me like flakes of sun-scorched skin, and beneath looms an awkward, an impossible adult. I read in my poetry album while the night wanders past the window – and unawares, 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.
I look forward to continue with Youth and Dependency soon, aware that those lovely pink covers might shield fragility and future suffering.
Twinkling lights
In childhood’s long night, both dim and dark
there are small twinkling lights that burn bright
like traces memory’s left there as sparks
while the heart freezes so and takes flight.
It’s here that your pathless love shines clear,
once lost in nights misty and chill,
and all that you’ve since loved and suffered most dear
has boundaries set by the will.
The first-felt sorrow’s a frail, thin light
like a tear that quivers in space;
that sorrow alone your heart will hold tight
when all others time has effaced.
High as a star on a night as in spring
your childhood’s first happiness burns,
you sought for it later, only to cling
to late-summer shadow’s swift turns.
Your faith you took with you to great extremes,
the first and the last to your cost,
in the dark now somewhere it surely gleams,
and there is no more to be lost.
And someone or other draws near to you but
will never quite manage to know you,
for beneath those small lights your life has been put,
since when everyone must forego you.
(***½)
Normally I tend to steer clear of childhood memoirs. I confess the prospect of possibly having to wrestle first through another bland recount of a period in life that I find only mildly interesting used to desist me from reading (auto)biographies in the past. Either I suspect such memories to be thoroughly miserable, or syrupy nostalgic, or self-aggrandising. An unhappy childhood is a writer’s goldmine (as amply illustrated by the novels of Patrick Modiano) and so I prefer to read the fictionalised rendition; pink-rimmed reminiscences tend to irritate me, as well as the adult version in hindsight allotting prodigious capacities to the child version. So I am not sure what made me bring this first volume of the memoirs of the Danish writer Tove Ditlevsen (1917-1976) from the library, but as it happens I did and I quite enjoyed reading it, mostly because of the very fine perceptive writing and the depiction of life in the 1920-30ies in Vesterbro, the working class neighbourhood in Kopenhagen where Tove Ditlevsen grew up. Evocative, poetic and intense – I read this slim book in one sitting despite having other plans (reading-wise and non-reading-wise). A wise observation of a friend on her review of Nathalie Sarraute’s Enfance recently made me realise I might have become less wary of reading about childhood now having attained a most comfortable distance from it.
The tender lavender coloured covers of Ditlevsen’s Copenhagen trilogy, each with a black and white photograph on it , could give the impression that her memoirs belong to the nostalgic category – which is, at least for the first volume, pretty deceptive. Her grandmother, telling stories, is a brief but warmly respected presence in the girl’s life and her relationship with her brother Edvin improves over time, but there is the aloof and bitter mother, the cramped living space, the heavy drinking of the men and numerous teenager pregnancies in the family and in the neighbourhood.
(Anna Ancher, At Noon, 1914)
As Childhood entails the memories of a budding poet and novelist – Ditlevsen started to write poems at the age of ten - the significant role of the written word, books, libraries in the young girl’s life is striking from the first chapter which illuminates the meaning of words to the six year old girl – their taste, their sound, their mysteries, their comfort – quite a few Danish writers crop up in her recount (Zakarias Nielsen, Vilhelm Bergsøe, Johannes V JensenAgnes Henningsen…).
What prompts a person to start writing, what makes one person wish to express emotions, thoughts, impressions in poetry while others don’t and won’t? Rather obviously there is the delicate, sensitive nature of the child, which here is so out of tune with the toughness of life and lack of perspective in the tenement block. There are the few books at home, the model of a reading father - a socialist losing his job because of his political activities - nolens volens triggering and inspiring her. From these first years arises the portrait of a perpetual outsider, the position of the misfit that drives one to the solace of words and writing – and an inward but intransigent rebelliousness against a fate that seems carved in stone, especially for girls who are too poor to continue studying and for who life at best has a marriage with ‘a stable skilled worker who comes right home with his weekly pay-check and doesn’t drink’ in store:
'Lamentation – what does that mean, Father?' I found the expression in Gorky and loved it. He considered this for a long time while he stroked the turned-up ends of his mustache. ‘It’s a Russian term’, he said then. ‘It means pain and misery and sorrow. Gorky was I great poet’. I said happily, ‘I want to be a poet too!’ Immediately he frowned and said severely, ‘Don’t be a fool! A girl can’t be a poet. Offended and hurt, I withdrew myself again while my mother and Edvin laughed at the crazy idea. I vowed never to reveal my dreams to anyone again, and I kept this vow throughout my childhood.
Reminding myself how I much I loved reading Maxim Gorky’s My Childhood – actually the perfect antidote to rebut my silly wee aversion of reading childhood memories - it struck me as particularly revelatory to encounter him again in Tove Ditlevsen’s memoirs.
Unlike the narrator, I have never experienced childhood as long and narrow like a coffin but I recall vividly how I also wished to grow up as soon as possible and shed that childhood odour from me. Equally, growing up with the stories my parents have told me about their childhood, their family circumstances and options at the age of fourteen (in 1960) quite alike those of Tove Ditlevsen, I cannot remember I had any dreams or aspirations at that age myself – but somehow, their stories favoured a lasting joy found in reading and learning.
(Anna Ancher, Sunlight in the blue room, 1891)
At the age of fourteen, Tove’s haste for leaving childhood behind and plunging into adult life has waned. The future is terrifying, ‘a monstrous, powerful colossus that will soon fall on me and crush me’. Her appreciation of childhood, which will stay a prominent topic in her writing, has changed:
Now the last remnants fall away from me like flakes of sun-scorched skin, and beneath looms an awkward, an impossible adult. I read in my poetry album while the night wanders past the window – and unawares, 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.
I look forward to continue with Youth and Dependency soon, aware that those lovely pink covers might shield fragility and future suffering.
Twinkling lights
In childhood’s long night, both dim and dark
there are small twinkling lights that burn bright
like traces memory’s left there as sparks
while the heart freezes so and takes flight.
It’s here that your pathless love shines clear,
once lost in nights misty and chill,
and all that you’ve since loved and suffered most dear
has boundaries set by the will.
The first-felt sorrow’s a frail, thin light
like a tear that quivers in space;
that sorrow alone your heart will hold tight
when all others time has effaced.
High as a star on a night as in spring
your childhood’s first happiness burns,
you sought for it later, only to cling
to late-summer shadow’s swift turns.
Your faith you took with you to great extremes,
the first and the last to your cost,
in the dark now somewhere it surely gleams,
and there is no more to be lost.
And someone or other draws near to you but
will never quite manage to know you,
for beneath those small lights your life has been put,
since when everyone must forego you.
(***½)
March 2, 2023
MEMORIA DI BAMBINA
Tove Ditlevsen nella strada della sua infanzia a Vesterbro, Copenhagen, circa 1950.
Mi sento straniera in questo mondo, e non c’è nessuno a cui io possa sottoporre i soverchianti quesiti che m’invadono la mente alla sola idea del futuro.
Si chiama Tove l’io narrante. Proprio come la scrittrice Ditlevsen. E, Ditlev è il cognome di suo padre.
Ci dice di essere nata nel 1918, ma la bandella e Wikipedia la fanno nascere il 14 dicembre del 1917: forse ha voluto farsi un piccolo sconto d’età essendo nata alla fine dell’anno.
Tra i suoi primi ricordi, mentre mangiava semolino tiepido zuccherato, c’è quello del giornale che parla dell’influenza spagnola e del Trattato di Versailles (1919).
Si fa presto a capire chi, oltre se stessa, nella famiglia (quattro in tutto) sarà sotto il suo personale riflettore:
Ho appena sei anni, ma tra non molto verrò iscritta a scuola, dato che so già leggere e scrivere. Mia madre lo racconta con fierezza a chiunque abbia la pazienza di ascoltarla… Dunque forse, nonostante tutto, mi vuole bene? Il mio rapporto con lei è stretto, doloroso, traballante, e se voglio un segno d’affetto devo cercarlo io. Qualunque cosa io faccia, la faccio per compiacere lei, per farla sorridere, per acquietare la sua rabbia.
Per poi aggiungere alla fine, quando l’infanzia sta finendo, e la gioventù è alle porte, la scuola media conclusa, e nessuna prospettiva in vista di continuare gli studi:
Rifletto sul fatto che una volta la cosa più importante al mondo era se mia madre mi amasse o meno, ma quella bambina che bramava con tanta forza il suo affetto e continuava a cercarne i segni non esiste più. Ora penso che mia madre mi voglia bene, ma questo non mi rende felice.
La fatica di crescere. E quella di essere bambina. In un mondo dominato dal maschile. Fatica che aumenta per le ristrettezze economiche e la scarsa cultura. Fatica che aumenta perché la bambina non si accontenta, non è mai doma, punta altrove, punta in alto.
Parecchio in anticipo sul fenomeno dell’autofiction, Tove Ditlevsen è paragonata a mostri sacri come Clarice Lispector, Jean Rhys, Diane Arbus, Joan Didion.
Ma il parallelo più calzante a me sembra quello col premio Nobel Annie Ernaux: l’universo della francese ricorda questo della danese, che però è molto più ironica, e anche più tenera, profonda ma meno tagliente, perché affondare e sezionare non sono il suo obiettivo. Tove e Annie condividono anche il gusto per il memoir, per il privato che diventa pubblico, il personale che si trasforma in politico, l’io che diventa noi, la storia che sale a Storia (che bello qui seguire brevi notazioni di vita sociale danese).
Femmine dalle pretese intellettuali, le definisce suo padre quelle donne che hanno grilli in testa e vogliono studiare, leggere, scrivere, magari perfino pubblicare: le studentesse sono brutte e presuntuose, conclude il padre, che non è un bruto alcolizzato ma un operaio socialdemocratico che non picchia i figli, legge il giornale e ha forte coscienza di classe. Ma le donne negli anni Venti del Novecento erano una classe a se stante. Ovviamente inferiore. Certo non solo in Danimarca.
La scrittura è semplice ed efficace, pulita, chiara, accessibile: mai un volo, un orpello, una leziosità. Si direbbe calibrata sull’età dell’io narrante che è contemporanea a quella dei fatti narrati: impressione accentuata dal frequente uso del tempo presente. E, in effetti, ne deriva una bella sensazione: quella d’essere totalmente calati nel tempo e nei fatti, d’essere quasi parte del narrato.
Sono contento, mi aspetta il secondo volume di questa più che notevole trilogia autobiografica.
Tove Ditlevsen nella strada della sua infanzia a Vesterbro, Copenhagen, circa 1950.
Mi sento straniera in questo mondo, e non c’è nessuno a cui io possa sottoporre i soverchianti quesiti che m’invadono la mente alla sola idea del futuro.
Si chiama Tove l’io narrante. Proprio come la scrittrice Ditlevsen. E, Ditlev è il cognome di suo padre.
Ci dice di essere nata nel 1918, ma la bandella e Wikipedia la fanno nascere il 14 dicembre del 1917: forse ha voluto farsi un piccolo sconto d’età essendo nata alla fine dell’anno.
Tra i suoi primi ricordi, mentre mangiava semolino tiepido zuccherato, c’è quello del giornale che parla dell’influenza spagnola e del Trattato di Versailles (1919).
Si fa presto a capire chi, oltre se stessa, nella famiglia (quattro in tutto) sarà sotto il suo personale riflettore:
Ho appena sei anni, ma tra non molto verrò iscritta a scuola, dato che so già leggere e scrivere. Mia madre lo racconta con fierezza a chiunque abbia la pazienza di ascoltarla… Dunque forse, nonostante tutto, mi vuole bene? Il mio rapporto con lei è stretto, doloroso, traballante, e se voglio un segno d’affetto devo cercarlo io. Qualunque cosa io faccia, la faccio per compiacere lei, per farla sorridere, per acquietare la sua rabbia.
Per poi aggiungere alla fine, quando l’infanzia sta finendo, e la gioventù è alle porte, la scuola media conclusa, e nessuna prospettiva in vista di continuare gli studi:
Rifletto sul fatto che una volta la cosa più importante al mondo era se mia madre mi amasse o meno, ma quella bambina che bramava con tanta forza il suo affetto e continuava a cercarne i segni non esiste più. Ora penso che mia madre mi voglia bene, ma questo non mi rende felice.
La fatica di crescere. E quella di essere bambina. In un mondo dominato dal maschile. Fatica che aumenta per le ristrettezze economiche e la scarsa cultura. Fatica che aumenta perché la bambina non si accontenta, non è mai doma, punta altrove, punta in alto.
Parecchio in anticipo sul fenomeno dell’autofiction, Tove Ditlevsen è paragonata a mostri sacri come Clarice Lispector, Jean Rhys, Diane Arbus, Joan Didion.
Ma il parallelo più calzante a me sembra quello col premio Nobel Annie Ernaux: l’universo della francese ricorda questo della danese, che però è molto più ironica, e anche più tenera, profonda ma meno tagliente, perché affondare e sezionare non sono il suo obiettivo. Tove e Annie condividono anche il gusto per il memoir, per il privato che diventa pubblico, il personale che si trasforma in politico, l’io che diventa noi, la storia che sale a Storia (che bello qui seguire brevi notazioni di vita sociale danese).
Femmine dalle pretese intellettuali, le definisce suo padre quelle donne che hanno grilli in testa e vogliono studiare, leggere, scrivere, magari perfino pubblicare: le studentesse sono brutte e presuntuose, conclude il padre, che non è un bruto alcolizzato ma un operaio socialdemocratico che non picchia i figli, legge il giornale e ha forte coscienza di classe. Ma le donne negli anni Venti del Novecento erano una classe a se stante. Ovviamente inferiore. Certo non solo in Danimarca.
La scrittura è semplice ed efficace, pulita, chiara, accessibile: mai un volo, un orpello, una leziosità. Si direbbe calibrata sull’età dell’io narrante che è contemporanea a quella dei fatti narrati: impressione accentuata dal frequente uso del tempo presente. E, in effetti, ne deriva una bella sensazione: quella d’essere totalmente calati nel tempo e nei fatti, d’essere quasi parte del narrato.
Sono contento, mi aspetta il secondo volume di questa più che notevole trilogia autobiografica.
January 12, 2023
An easy reading memoir of growing up working class in Copenhagen between the world wars. Sharp in observations on childhood and elasticity of time, but at times also a bit pedestrian
Wherever you turn, you run up against your childhood and hurt yourself because it’s sharp-edged and hard, and stops only when it has torn you completely apart. It seems that everyone has their own and each is totally different.
Precocious children, who are quite foulmouthed, form the heart of Childhood. Growing up in the period between World War I and World War II, domestic violence and recession definitely play large roles. Social control in the neighbourhood is strong and there is shame for buying old bread, even though the family lives in an area with drunkards and whores.
Love for books and language distinguishes the narrator from her working class surrounding, but there is enough attention for sexism, with hurdles along every step of the way for her.
There are also enormously dramatic children poems that provide some comic relief along the way. Nowhere does Tove Ditlevsen her writing feels heavy; it is an easy read that sucks you into the Copenhagen that the author grew up in.
The times where different than those of the affluent nordic country of the current age: the narrator stayed into the hospital for three months due to dypyheria and unemployment, together with bankrupt banks, give a great impression of the times.
I enjoyed the book, but at times I had liked some more depth and bigger events. The main character is definitely interesting, with her contemplating that lying is sometimes needed to bring the truth to light and her thinking that she doesn't have real feelings, but that she just replicates the emotional reacts of others.
Wherever you turn, you run up against your childhood and hurt yourself because it’s sharp-edged and hard, and stops only when it has torn you completely apart. It seems that everyone has their own and each is totally different.
Precocious children, who are quite foulmouthed, form the heart of Childhood. Growing up in the period between World War I and World War II, domestic violence and recession definitely play large roles. Social control in the neighbourhood is strong and there is shame for buying old bread, even though the family lives in an area with drunkards and whores.
Love for books and language distinguishes the narrator from her working class surrounding, but there is enough attention for sexism, with hurdles along every step of the way for her.
There are also enormously dramatic children poems that provide some comic relief along the way. Nowhere does Tove Ditlevsen her writing feels heavy; it is an easy read that sucks you into the Copenhagen that the author grew up in.
The times where different than those of the affluent nordic country of the current age: the narrator stayed into the hospital for three months due to dypyheria and unemployment, together with bankrupt banks, give a great impression of the times.
I enjoyed the book, but at times I had liked some more depth and bigger events. The main character is definitely interesting, with her contemplating that lying is sometimes needed to bring the truth to light and her thinking that she doesn't have real feelings, but that she just replicates the emotional reacts of others.
Read
June 10, 2020
September 20, 2023
Die US-amerikanische Autorin Lucia Berlin war lange Zeit nur absoluten Literaturnerds ein Begriff, bis sie die Veröffentlichung einer Auswahl ihrer besten Kurzgeschichten 11 Jahre nach ihrem Tod vor der absoluten Versenkung bewahrte. James Baldwin erfreut sich in der zweiten Dekade des 21. Jahrhunderts einer vorher nie da gewesenen Popularität und Wertschätzung durch den Mainstream. Und nun reiht sich endlich auch Tove Ditlevsen in diese Reihe verkannter Genies ein. Auch sie war eine jener Autorinnen, deren Werke jahrzehntelang höchstens in Bibliotheken verstaubten, jedoch selten in die Hände einer literaturbegeisterten Leserschaft gelangten.
Und auch hier war eine Neuauflage bzw. Erstübersetzung ihres Hauptwerks, der sogenannten "Kopenhagen-Trilogie", ausschlaggebend. Mehr als 50 Jahre nach dem Erscheinen des dänischen Originals 1967 können wir nun endlich Tove Ditlevsens Autobiographie auf Deutsch und Englisch lesen.
Auch ich bekam von dem neu entstandenen Hype um diese Autorin mit und war sofort überzeugt davon, ihr Werk erkunden zu wollen. Zum einen las ich noch nie etwas von einer dänischen Autorin, zum anderen finde ich autofiktionale Werke bzw. Memoiren unheimlich spannend. Annie Ernaux, die streng genommen eine Nachgängerin Ditlevsens ist, konnte mich letztes Jahr mit Une femme begeistern.
Tove Ditlevsen wuchs im Kopenhagener Arbeiterviertel Vesterbro auf und lebte fast die ganze Zeit in der Stadt, bis sie sich 1976 mit 58 Jahren das Leben nahm. "Kindheit" ist der Beginn der Biografie eines Arbeiterkindes, das trotz Begabung nicht aufs Gymnasium durfte und dennoch bereits in jungen Jahren eine beeindruckende Schriftsteller-Karriere hinlegte. Sie schrieb Gedichte, Romane, Erzählungen, Kinderbücher und Essays. Wie sich die Sprache als Schutz zwischen Ich und Wirklichkeit schiebt, beschreibt "Kindheit" auf vielfältige Weise. Der Vater, ein Heizer, der in der Weltwirtschaftskrise arbeitslos wird, hat als leidenschaftlicher Leser Verständnis für seine Tochter, auch wenn er Gedichte für "Schwärmerei" hält. Heimlich benutzt sie ihr Poesiealbum, um eigene Gedichte zu notieren, die später einmal belegen sollen, was für ein "Wunderkind" sie war.
Die "Kopenhagen-Trilogie" war eine Art Neustart nach einer tiefen Krise, wenn man bei einer Schriftstellerin, die unter Alkohol- und Medikamentensucht litt, von einer Ehe in die nächste schlidderte und die Psychiatrie als "Zufluchtsort" vor Männern und Kindern empfand, überhaupt von einzelnen Krisen sprechen kann.
Ditlevsen beschreibt, wie unterschiedlich Kindheiten selbst bei Geschwistern sein können: "Wherever you turn, you run up against your childhood and hurt yourself because it's sharp-edged and hard, and stops only when it has torn you completely apart. It seems that everyone has their own and each is totally different. My brother's childhood is very noisy, for example, while mine is quiet and furtive and watchful. No one likes it and no one has any use for it."
Ditlevsens Kindheit ist von Angst, Sorge und Beklemmung geprägt, nicht zuletzt aufgrund ihrer aggressiven und toxischen Mutter, die ihren Frust und Ärger gerne an der Tochter auslässt. Still sitzt sie neben ihrer Mutter am Küchentisch, während der Vater arbeiten und der Bruder in der Schule ist. Ihre Mutter wird jeden Moment aufspringen, und Tove weiß, dass sie still sein muss, damit die Mutter aufspringt, um einkaufen zu gehen, und nicht, um über die eigene Tochter herzufallen, mit Worten oder Taten. "I had to get dressed too, and the world was cold and dangerous and ominous because my mother's dark anger always ended in her slapping my face or pushing me against the stove."
Daher ist es naheliegend, dass Ditlevsen ihre Kindheit wie ein winselndes kleines Tier, "das man in einen Keller eingesperrt und vergessen hat", beschreibt. Für sie gilt: "Childhood is long and narrow like a coffin, and you can't get out of it on your own." Dieser Vergleich geht auf jeden Fall ins Mark. Vor allem für einen Menschen wie mich, der eine schöne Kindheit hatte. Ich würde meine Kindheit als weit und offen und voller Möglichkeiten beschreiben. Nichts wäre mir ferner als ein Vergleich zu einem engen Sarg.
Doch natürlich ist es vollkommen klar, dass Ditlevsen als Arbeiterkind und Mädchen in den 20er- und 30er-Jahre ganz andere Dinge durchmachen musste, als ich 80 Jahre später. Ich würde die "Kopenhagen-Trilogie" durchaus als feministisches Werk bezeichnen. Ditlevsen erzählt sehr eindrücklich davon, wie sie als Mädchen eingeengt und limitiert wurde. Ihr Bruder durfte die Schule fertig machen, sie nicht. Als sie ihrem Vater von ihrem Wunsch erzählt, Dichterin zu werden, antwortet dieser entgeistert: "A girl can't be a poet." Es ist diese Aussage (oder besser gesagt Absage), die Ditlevsen dazu verleitet, ihre Träume nie wieder mit jemand anderem zu teilen. Ständig vergleicht sich die kleine Tove mit ihrem älteren Bruder Edvin. Edvin ist hübsch, sie ist hässlich. Edvin ist schlau, sie ist dumm. Und ihre Unsicherheiten werden vor allem durch die Mutter stark befeuert.
Obwohl die Mutter quasi als Tyrann in Ditlevsens Kindheit auftaucht, finde ich diese Tochter-Beziehung mit am spannendsten, denn Ditlevsen führt zögerlich auch die Beweggründe der Mutter für ihr toxisches Verhalten an. Ihre Mutter war eine Frau, die sich nur zuhause machtvoll fühlen konnte. In der "echten Welt" hatte sie einen schlechten bzw. gar keinen Stand, aufgrund ihrer niederen Klasse und ihres jungen Alters; außerhalb ihrer Familie hatte sie keine Autorität. Und auch sie musste schon in jungen Jahren alles aufgeben und ihre eigene Freiheit und Bedürfnisse der Familie unterordnen. All dies entschuldigt nicht ihr ausfallendes Verhalten ihrer Tochter gegenüber, aber es erklärt es. Es passt ebenfalls ins Bild, dass Ditlevsen ihren Vater eher positiv in Erinnerung behalten hat – "Down in the bottom of my childhood my father stands laughing." – er war schließlich nicht derjenige, der die Verantwortung für die Erziehung der Kinder trug.
Obwohl Ditlevsens und meine Kindheit nicht unterschiedlicher hätten sein können, gibt es trotzdem viele Stellen, an denen ich mit ihr relaten und mitfühlen konnte, wie beispielsweise bei den universellen Ängsten und Unsicherheiten, die man als Kind (und vor allem als Mädchen) eben hat, wie dem Gefühl, nie gut genug zu sein, oder dem Gefühl, nie Liebe außerhalb der eigenen Familie finden zu können, oder der Wut Erwachsenen gegenüber, die sich nie eigene Fehler eingestehen können.
Was mich persönlich jedoch am meisten abgeholt hat, waren die Zukunftsängste, die Ditlevsen so eindrücklich beschreibt: "Whenever I think about the future, I run up against a wall everywhere, and that's why I want to prolong my childhood so badly." und "The future is a monstrous, powerful colossus that will soon fall on me and crush me." Das sind harte Sätze und doch fühle ich sie ganz tief in mir drin. Und all den Leuten, die stets zu sagen pflegen, "ach, das wird schon alles", möchte man entgegenschreien, dass es eben nicht immer so glimpflich ausgeht. Tove Ditlevsen wurde von der Zukunft erdrückt. Von unzähligen, unglücklichen Ehen, von einer Medikamentensucht, die sie in die Klinik trieb, und schließlich in den Tod. Es ist nicht immer "Ende gut, alles gut". Das Leben ist verdammt schwierig und es kann verdammt schrecklich sein.
Ditlevsens Prosa ist feinsinnig und brutal, genauso wie ihr Leben. Sie holt Vergangenes ganz und gar in die Gegenwart. Und so hat es ihr Werk mehr als verdient ebenfalls zurück in die Gegenwart geholt und gefeiert zu werden. Was für eine brillante Wiederentdeckung! "Kindheit" ist der furiose Auftakt und kurioserweise mein liebster Band in dieser Trilogie.
Und auch hier war eine Neuauflage bzw. Erstübersetzung ihres Hauptwerks, der sogenannten "Kopenhagen-Trilogie", ausschlaggebend. Mehr als 50 Jahre nach dem Erscheinen des dänischen Originals 1967 können wir nun endlich Tove Ditlevsens Autobiographie auf Deutsch und Englisch lesen.
Auch ich bekam von dem neu entstandenen Hype um diese Autorin mit und war sofort überzeugt davon, ihr Werk erkunden zu wollen. Zum einen las ich noch nie etwas von einer dänischen Autorin, zum anderen finde ich autofiktionale Werke bzw. Memoiren unheimlich spannend. Annie Ernaux, die streng genommen eine Nachgängerin Ditlevsens ist, konnte mich letztes Jahr mit Une femme begeistern.
Tove Ditlevsen wuchs im Kopenhagener Arbeiterviertel Vesterbro auf und lebte fast die ganze Zeit in der Stadt, bis sie sich 1976 mit 58 Jahren das Leben nahm. "Kindheit" ist der Beginn der Biografie eines Arbeiterkindes, das trotz Begabung nicht aufs Gymnasium durfte und dennoch bereits in jungen Jahren eine beeindruckende Schriftsteller-Karriere hinlegte. Sie schrieb Gedichte, Romane, Erzählungen, Kinderbücher und Essays. Wie sich die Sprache als Schutz zwischen Ich und Wirklichkeit schiebt, beschreibt "Kindheit" auf vielfältige Weise. Der Vater, ein Heizer, der in der Weltwirtschaftskrise arbeitslos wird, hat als leidenschaftlicher Leser Verständnis für seine Tochter, auch wenn er Gedichte für "Schwärmerei" hält. Heimlich benutzt sie ihr Poesiealbum, um eigene Gedichte zu notieren, die später einmal belegen sollen, was für ein "Wunderkind" sie war.
Die "Kopenhagen-Trilogie" war eine Art Neustart nach einer tiefen Krise, wenn man bei einer Schriftstellerin, die unter Alkohol- und Medikamentensucht litt, von einer Ehe in die nächste schlidderte und die Psychiatrie als "Zufluchtsort" vor Männern und Kindern empfand, überhaupt von einzelnen Krisen sprechen kann.
Ditlevsen beschreibt, wie unterschiedlich Kindheiten selbst bei Geschwistern sein können: "Wherever you turn, you run up against your childhood and hurt yourself because it's sharp-edged and hard, and stops only when it has torn you completely apart. It seems that everyone has their own and each is totally different. My brother's childhood is very noisy, for example, while mine is quiet and furtive and watchful. No one likes it and no one has any use for it."
Ditlevsens Kindheit ist von Angst, Sorge und Beklemmung geprägt, nicht zuletzt aufgrund ihrer aggressiven und toxischen Mutter, die ihren Frust und Ärger gerne an der Tochter auslässt. Still sitzt sie neben ihrer Mutter am Küchentisch, während der Vater arbeiten und der Bruder in der Schule ist. Ihre Mutter wird jeden Moment aufspringen, und Tove weiß, dass sie still sein muss, damit die Mutter aufspringt, um einkaufen zu gehen, und nicht, um über die eigene Tochter herzufallen, mit Worten oder Taten. "I had to get dressed too, and the world was cold and dangerous and ominous because my mother's dark anger always ended in her slapping my face or pushing me against the stove."
Daher ist es naheliegend, dass Ditlevsen ihre Kindheit wie ein winselndes kleines Tier, "das man in einen Keller eingesperrt und vergessen hat", beschreibt. Für sie gilt: "Childhood is long and narrow like a coffin, and you can't get out of it on your own." Dieser Vergleich geht auf jeden Fall ins Mark. Vor allem für einen Menschen wie mich, der eine schöne Kindheit hatte. Ich würde meine Kindheit als weit und offen und voller Möglichkeiten beschreiben. Nichts wäre mir ferner als ein Vergleich zu einem engen Sarg.
Doch natürlich ist es vollkommen klar, dass Ditlevsen als Arbeiterkind und Mädchen in den 20er- und 30er-Jahre ganz andere Dinge durchmachen musste, als ich 80 Jahre später. Ich würde die "Kopenhagen-Trilogie" durchaus als feministisches Werk bezeichnen. Ditlevsen erzählt sehr eindrücklich davon, wie sie als Mädchen eingeengt und limitiert wurde. Ihr Bruder durfte die Schule fertig machen, sie nicht. Als sie ihrem Vater von ihrem Wunsch erzählt, Dichterin zu werden, antwortet dieser entgeistert: "A girl can't be a poet." Es ist diese Aussage (oder besser gesagt Absage), die Ditlevsen dazu verleitet, ihre Träume nie wieder mit jemand anderem zu teilen. Ständig vergleicht sich die kleine Tove mit ihrem älteren Bruder Edvin. Edvin ist hübsch, sie ist hässlich. Edvin ist schlau, sie ist dumm. Und ihre Unsicherheiten werden vor allem durch die Mutter stark befeuert.
Obwohl die Mutter quasi als Tyrann in Ditlevsens Kindheit auftaucht, finde ich diese Tochter-Beziehung mit am spannendsten, denn Ditlevsen führt zögerlich auch die Beweggründe der Mutter für ihr toxisches Verhalten an. Ihre Mutter war eine Frau, die sich nur zuhause machtvoll fühlen konnte. In der "echten Welt" hatte sie einen schlechten bzw. gar keinen Stand, aufgrund ihrer niederen Klasse und ihres jungen Alters; außerhalb ihrer Familie hatte sie keine Autorität. Und auch sie musste schon in jungen Jahren alles aufgeben und ihre eigene Freiheit und Bedürfnisse der Familie unterordnen. All dies entschuldigt nicht ihr ausfallendes Verhalten ihrer Tochter gegenüber, aber es erklärt es. Es passt ebenfalls ins Bild, dass Ditlevsen ihren Vater eher positiv in Erinnerung behalten hat – "Down in the bottom of my childhood my father stands laughing." – er war schließlich nicht derjenige, der die Verantwortung für die Erziehung der Kinder trug.
Obwohl Ditlevsens und meine Kindheit nicht unterschiedlicher hätten sein können, gibt es trotzdem viele Stellen, an denen ich mit ihr relaten und mitfühlen konnte, wie beispielsweise bei den universellen Ängsten und Unsicherheiten, die man als Kind (und vor allem als Mädchen) eben hat, wie dem Gefühl, nie gut genug zu sein, oder dem Gefühl, nie Liebe außerhalb der eigenen Familie finden zu können, oder der Wut Erwachsenen gegenüber, die sich nie eigene Fehler eingestehen können.
Was mich persönlich jedoch am meisten abgeholt hat, waren die Zukunftsängste, die Ditlevsen so eindrücklich beschreibt: "Whenever I think about the future, I run up against a wall everywhere, and that's why I want to prolong my childhood so badly." und "The future is a monstrous, powerful colossus that will soon fall on me and crush me." Das sind harte Sätze und doch fühle ich sie ganz tief in mir drin. Und all den Leuten, die stets zu sagen pflegen, "ach, das wird schon alles", möchte man entgegenschreien, dass es eben nicht immer so glimpflich ausgeht. Tove Ditlevsen wurde von der Zukunft erdrückt. Von unzähligen, unglücklichen Ehen, von einer Medikamentensucht, die sie in die Klinik trieb, und schließlich in den Tod. Es ist nicht immer "Ende gut, alles gut". Das Leben ist verdammt schwierig und es kann verdammt schrecklich sein.
Ditlevsens Prosa ist feinsinnig und brutal, genauso wie ihr Leben. Sie holt Vergangenes ganz und gar in die Gegenwart. Und so hat es ihr Werk mehr als verdient ebenfalls zurück in die Gegenwart geholt und gefeiert zu werden. Was für eine brillante Wiederentdeckung! "Kindheit" ist der furiose Auftakt und kurioserweise mein liebster Band in dieser Trilogie.
Read
August 31, 2021
Childhood by Tove Ditlevsen
The last time I read an autobiography was more than forty years ago - Philosopher at Large : An Intellectual Autobiography by Mortimer J. Adler. I read the book since, at the time, I was interested in the Great Books of the Western World and Mortimer Adler spearheaded the project.
I mention this to let readers know memoirs and personal reminiscences are generally not to my taste. For me, a recounting of day-to-day happenings is not nearly as provocative as a shifting into the fantastic via imagination. By way of example, here's a childhood episode as recounted by one of my favorite authors:
CEMENT by Barry Yourgrau
I am at the beach with my mother. I bury her up to her neck in sand, "Alright, now please let me out," she says finally. "It''s hard to breathe." Only if you pay me a tremendous amount of cash," I inform her, teasing. I start to dig her out, but I can't. The sand is like stone. It's turned to cement. "Please, stop joking, get me out," my mother pants. "I can't breathe." I'm not joking, something's wrong," I protest. I scratch at the cement desperately. I pound on it with my fists. The surf surges around us, splashing my mother in the face. "Help me, help me," she bleats, wildly. "I''m trying. I can't do anything.!" I cry. "I'll have to get help!" I rush down the beach, waving and shouting, frantic. Some men are drinking beer by a pickup truck. They run back with me with shovels and pickaxes.
I wander about holding my head in my hands. They smash up the cement, their pickaxes swinging high and low, violently. "Careful, oh please be careful," I plead, walking back and forth, helpless. One of them crouches by my mother, cupping her chin out of the water. Her eyes are haggard with terror. "Can't breathe . . . can't breath . . . " she keeps bleating, through clenched teeth. "You'll be okay, you'll be okay," I promise her desperately.
Finally they have her out. The seawater gushes and roams in the rubble. Other, different men appear, they bear my mother over the dunes, carrying her high in a litter. An oxygen line runs into her nose from a cylinder. A catheter bag sways from a little handle, its hose running up under her pale thighs.
I follow behind in a distraught daze, plodding through deep sand carrying our sandy beach towels, my mother's much-ornamented beach bag. "How did it happen, how did it happen?" I moan, over and over again. A small plane flies low over the beach, dragging a long, fluttering sign. I give out a sobbing cry, imagining the sign bearing her frail name, the helpless dates and particulars of her obituary.
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However, I did enjoy many parts of Childhood by Tove Ditlevsen, especially when she speaks of her connection to writing and poetry. Here are several direct quotes along with my comments:
"She was foreign and strange, and I thought that I had been exchanged at birth and she wasn't my mother at all."
Tove recounts her feelings as a preschooler, sensing she belongs with another mother. Our modern society has a name for this sense that usually doesn't hit women and men until they are young adults: alienation.
"I sleep to escape the night that trails past with window with its train of terror and evil and danger."
When Tove begins to venture outside with or without her mother, her sense of alienation deepens - not only does Tove feel she belongs to another mother; she intuits she belongs to another world.
"All of my childhood books where his (her Father), and on my fifth birthday he gave me a wonderful edition of Grimms' Fairy Tales, without which my childhood would have been gray and dreary and impoverished."
Ah, even as a five-year-old, Tove comprehends there is a world where she can escape the trap of a deadening associating with the adults she's fated to live with: a book!
Tove's father tells her that Maxim Gorky was a great poet. To which, Tove tells him, "I want to be a poet too!" Tove then relates that "Immediately he frowned and said severely, "Don't be a fool! A girl can't be a poet." Tove's subsequent reflection, "Offended and hurt, I withdrew into myself again while my mother and Edvin laughed at the crazy idea. I vowed never to reveal my dreams to anyone again, and i kept this vow throughout my childhood."
So, so sad. And not all that uncommon - a child expresses a desire to be an artist or writer or musician and the inevitable putdown by an adult. The reason? Mainly because literature and the arts represent a threat to the uptight, constipated world created by legions of conforming mediocre stiffs.
Tove Ditlevsen documents her confrontation with her family and the world as she moves through her childhood, all the while deepening her love of books and writing, expressed in language that's clear, straightforward and remarkably poetic.
Danish author Tove Ditlevsen, 1917-1976
March 31, 2022
Although this looks like such a simple, straightforward, honest account of the author's childhood, albeit told in unusually beautiful language, I think Tove Ditlevsen is laughing at us. She realised at a very young age that she wanted to be a poet. Girls can't be poets, her father told her brusquely, but she couldn't let go of her dream: putting words together was the only thing that mattered to her, she was unable to experience life except by turning it into writing. It didn't matter if what she wrote down was true, in the narrow sense people generally use, poets have a different way of thinking about truth. She tells us about things that may or may not have happened (no one else can remember them, she explains), and every now and then she interrupts the flow of the narrative. This is the kind of thing I was writing at the time, she says, and she shows us one of the poems she put in the book no one else was allowed to see.
I think these poems are the heart of the story. Danish isn't a language I know well, but it's close to Swedish, which I speak fluently, so I can read them as though they're written in Swedish dialect. From the way she presents them, I thought she was telling us they weren't very good, but in fact I rather liked them. Eventually her brother finds the book and reads her most secret thoughts. He laughs hysterically, mostly because he's so shocked to find his kid sister has all this stuff inside her that he'd never even suspected might exist. She screams at him to give it back, and after that she never lets the book out of her sight. But a few months later he says he has a friend with connections in publishing who'd like to see her writing. She reluctantly shows him the book. These are terrific, says the friend, and he arranges an interview with the editor of a literary magazine.
Tove turns up at the editor's office, so agitated she can't say a word. She just hands the book over to him. He reads through it, mumbling the lines to himself. These are very erotic, he says, surprised. Not all of them, says Tove, horribly embarrassed. But damn, the erotic ones are the best ones, he says. How old are you? Fourteen, says Tove. Well, says the editor, I'm just in charge of the children's page, I can't use this. Come back in a couple of years. Tove is crushed and doesn't show her writing to anyone again for a long time.
I have never seen such a clear account of how someone becomes a poet.
I think these poems are the heart of the story. Danish isn't a language I know well, but it's close to Swedish, which I speak fluently, so I can read them as though they're written in Swedish dialect. From the way she presents them, I thought she was telling us they weren't very good, but in fact I rather liked them. Eventually her brother finds the book and reads her most secret thoughts. He laughs hysterically, mostly because he's so shocked to find his kid sister has all this stuff inside her that he'd never even suspected might exist. She screams at him to give it back, and after that she never lets the book out of her sight. But a few months later he says he has a friend with connections in publishing who'd like to see her writing. She reluctantly shows him the book. These are terrific, says the friend, and he arranges an interview with the editor of a literary magazine.
Tove turns up at the editor's office, so agitated she can't say a word. She just hands the book over to him. He reads through it, mumbling the lines to himself. These are very erotic, he says, surprised. Not all of them, says Tove, horribly embarrassed. But damn, the erotic ones are the best ones, he says. How old are you? Fourteen, says Tove. Well, says the editor, I'm just in charge of the children's page, I can't use this. Come back in a couple of years. Tove is crushed and doesn't show her writing to anyone again for a long time.
I have never seen such a clear account of how someone becomes a poet.
March 25, 2022
[4.5 stars]
"Someday I'll write down all of the words that flow through me. Someday other people will read them in a book and marvel that a girl could be a poet, after all."
In the same vein as The Diary of a Young Girl, with hints of Ferrante's Neapolitan Novels and the auto-fiction of Knausgaard, Tove Ditlevsen's Copenhagen Trilogy begins with childhood. She writes from a much older perspective, reflecting on her infancy through her teen years when she graduates from school and must begin to provide for herself.
There's nothing particularly extravagant or exceptional about her life, but in the mundanity she makes profound observations.
"Where you turn, you run up against your childhood and hurt yourself because it's sharp-edged and hard, and stops only when it has torn you completely apart."
Born in 1917 in Denmark, Ditlevsen grew up writing fervently in her poetry composition book. Keeping her secret poems only to herself, she dreamt of being a writer and someday sharing it with the world. In this first installment of her tri-part memoir, we discover the origins of her poetic worldview.
The poems she sprinkles throughout are almost comical in how mature they are for such a young poet, but also harrowing in how she's somehow tapped into a much larger feeling that she, as a child, can't quite explain. Her circumstances cement her in a patriarchal society where she is expected to find a job until she gets married at eighteen; but her passion for poetry and observant point-of-view give her something grander to cling to in order to make it through each day.
It's a beautifully written, at times hilarious but also somber story about an ordinary young girl who happens to be an extraordinary writer. I would highly recommend this, especially considering it's so short (my copy is only 99 pages). I'm eager to pick up the second and third installments soon!
"Someday I'll write down all of the words that flow through me. Someday other people will read them in a book and marvel that a girl could be a poet, after all."
In the same vein as The Diary of a Young Girl, with hints of Ferrante's Neapolitan Novels and the auto-fiction of Knausgaard, Tove Ditlevsen's Copenhagen Trilogy begins with childhood. She writes from a much older perspective, reflecting on her infancy through her teen years when she graduates from school and must begin to provide for herself.
There's nothing particularly extravagant or exceptional about her life, but in the mundanity she makes profound observations.
"Where you turn, you run up against your childhood and hurt yourself because it's sharp-edged and hard, and stops only when it has torn you completely apart."
Born in 1917 in Denmark, Ditlevsen grew up writing fervently in her poetry composition book. Keeping her secret poems only to herself, she dreamt of being a writer and someday sharing it with the world. In this first installment of her tri-part memoir, we discover the origins of her poetic worldview.
The poems she sprinkles throughout are almost comical in how mature they are for such a young poet, but also harrowing in how she's somehow tapped into a much larger feeling that she, as a child, can't quite explain. Her circumstances cement her in a patriarchal society where she is expected to find a job until she gets married at eighteen; but her passion for poetry and observant point-of-view give her something grander to cling to in order to make it through each day.
It's a beautifully written, at times hilarious but also somber story about an ordinary young girl who happens to be an extraordinary writer. I would highly recommend this, especially considering it's so short (my copy is only 99 pages). I'm eager to pick up the second and third installments soon!
October 15, 2022
"Frau Heidenreich, eine Frage: Was ist ein gutes Buch?"
"Ein gutes Buch, das ist eine gute Geschichte, die gut erzählt ist."
"Danke!"
Kindheit ist ein gutes Buch.
(Zur Preispolitik vom atb in diesem Fall, drei Mini-Bücher aus einem zu machen und so 36 Euro statt 13 einzustecken: Fuck off)
"Ein gutes Buch, das ist eine gute Geschichte, die gut erzählt ist."
"Danke!"
Kindheit ist ein gutes Buch.
(Zur Preispolitik vom atb in diesem Fall, drei Mini-Bücher aus einem zu machen und so 36 Euro statt 13 einzustecken: Fuck off)
July 9, 2024
Barndommen er lang og smal som en kiste, og man kan ikke slippe ud af den ved egen hjælp.
Childhood is long and narrow like a coffin, and you can’t get out of it on your own.
Tove Ditlevsen's Copenhagen Trilogy of memoirs were published originally in 1967 (Barndom), 1967 (Ungdom) and 1971 (Gift, erindringer). The first two volumes were translated into English by Tiina Nunnally and published in the mid 1980s, but in 2019 Penguin Classics reissued them in 2019 with a translation of the third volume by Michael Favala Goldman
The trilogy first came to my attention via John Self's brilliant review in the New Statesman and the trilogy was perhaps the book I most noticed in end of 2019 best-of lists. Other strong write-ups included Boyd Tonkin in The Spectator, both Liz Jensen and Alex Preston in the Guardian and Lucy Scholes The Telegraph as well as various of my favourite bloggers e.g. Eric the Lonesome Reader, JacquiWine and Readers' Retreat.
There is little I can add to these reviews other than my endorsement and agreement. Ditlevsen was a poet by vocation, and her prose is both lyrical but powerful and concise.
Childhood (/Barndom) takes us through Ditlevsen's childhood (she was born in late 1917) in just less than 100 pages (although my one gripe would be Penguin selling the three volumes separately, meaning that the combined trilogy, which amounts to only c350 pages, retails at an uneconomical £29.97)
It documents Ditlevsen's troubled relationship with her parents, her socialist activist of a father, who idolised Thorvald Stauning, the first social democratic Prime Minister of Denmark but told Tove that women couldn't be poets, and her often angry mother:
When hope had been crushed like that, my mother would get dressed with violent and irritated movements, as if every piece of clothing were an insult to her. I had to get dressed too, and the world was cold and dangerous and ominous because my mother’s dark anger always ended in her slapping my face or pushing me against the stove. She was foreign and strange, and I thought that I had been exchanged at birth and she wasn’t my mother at all.
This sense of not belonging and being different grows as the book progresses, and she finds herself increasingly distant from her friends:
I've stopped going round on Istergarde in the evening with Ruth and Minna, because more and more their conversations consist of nothing but giggling references and coarse, obscene things that can't always be transformed into gentle, rhythmic lines in my increasingly sensitive soul.
It ends, at age 14, with her graduation from school (economic circumstances prevented her going on to high school) and her confirmation - a civil one as her socialist father had removed the family from the church after the death of her grandmother:
I read in the poetry album, while the night wanders past the window - and, unawares, 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.
Recommended and I look forward to volumes 2 and 3.
Childhood is long and narrow like a coffin, and you can’t get out of it on your own.
Tove Ditlevsen's Copenhagen Trilogy of memoirs were published originally in 1967 (Barndom), 1967 (Ungdom) and 1971 (Gift, erindringer). The first two volumes were translated into English by Tiina Nunnally and published in the mid 1980s, but in 2019 Penguin Classics reissued them in 2019 with a translation of the third volume by Michael Favala Goldman
The trilogy first came to my attention via John Self's brilliant review in the New Statesman and the trilogy was perhaps the book I most noticed in end of 2019 best-of lists. Other strong write-ups included Boyd Tonkin in The Spectator, both Liz Jensen and Alex Preston in the Guardian and Lucy Scholes The Telegraph as well as various of my favourite bloggers e.g. Eric the Lonesome Reader, JacquiWine and Readers' Retreat.
There is little I can add to these reviews other than my endorsement and agreement. Ditlevsen was a poet by vocation, and her prose is both lyrical but powerful and concise.
Childhood (/Barndom) takes us through Ditlevsen's childhood (she was born in late 1917) in just less than 100 pages (although my one gripe would be Penguin selling the three volumes separately, meaning that the combined trilogy, which amounts to only c350 pages, retails at an uneconomical £29.97)
It documents Ditlevsen's troubled relationship with her parents, her socialist activist of a father, who idolised Thorvald Stauning, the first social democratic Prime Minister of Denmark but told Tove that women couldn't be poets, and her often angry mother:
When hope had been crushed like that, my mother would get dressed with violent and irritated movements, as if every piece of clothing were an insult to her. I had to get dressed too, and the world was cold and dangerous and ominous because my mother’s dark anger always ended in her slapping my face or pushing me against the stove. She was foreign and strange, and I thought that I had been exchanged at birth and she wasn’t my mother at all.
This sense of not belonging and being different grows as the book progresses, and she finds herself increasingly distant from her friends:
I've stopped going round on Istergarde in the evening with Ruth and Minna, because more and more their conversations consist of nothing but giggling references and coarse, obscene things that can't always be transformed into gentle, rhythmic lines in my increasingly sensitive soul.
It ends, at age 14, with her graduation from school (economic circumstances prevented her going on to high school) and her confirmation - a civil one as her socialist father had removed the family from the church after the death of her grandmother:
I read in the poetry album, while the night wanders past the window - and, unawares, 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.
Recommended and I look forward to volumes 2 and 3.
April 1, 2021
The Danish writer Tove Ditlevsen (1917-1976) started her autobiographical ‘Copenhague trilogy’ in the mid-1960s. She was almost 50 at the time, for many people an age to take stock of their lives. In most cases, childhood is presented as the happiest period, a time of security and innocence. Not so with Ditlevsen. This short book is full of very bitter characterizations of her childhood, such as, “Whichever way you turn, you bump into your childhood because it is angular and hard, and it doesn't stop until it completely has torn you.”.
Ditlevsen grew up in a proletarian environment and if we are to believe these memoirs, it is the lack of attention and tenderness from her choleric mother that has marked her for life. In general this coming-of-age story has all the typical characteristics: the struggle with the secrets of the adult world, the urge to be 'normal' or to be recognized as such, the discovery of her own individuality (she started writing poems early on), and the struggle with the social convention that girls and women must 'conform'.
This is a very conventionally structured and therefore easy to read book; it simply follows the chronology of childhood over twenty episodes. The sharp observations and the slightly naturalistic touch give it its own oppressive undertone. Especially the 6th chapter, with a general and very negative characterization of childhood, leaves an depressing mark. I look forward to reading the next parts.
Ditlevsen grew up in a proletarian environment and if we are to believe these memoirs, it is the lack of attention and tenderness from her choleric mother that has marked her for life. In general this coming-of-age story has all the typical characteristics: the struggle with the secrets of the adult world, the urge to be 'normal' or to be recognized as such, the discovery of her own individuality (she started writing poems early on), and the struggle with the social convention that girls and women must 'conform'.
This is a very conventionally structured and therefore easy to read book; it simply follows the chronology of childhood over twenty episodes. The sharp observations and the slightly naturalistic touch give it its own oppressive undertone. Especially the 6th chapter, with a general and very negative characterization of childhood, leaves an depressing mark. I look forward to reading the next parts.
November 25, 2021
Incredibly beautiful. I will write more on this later...
September 22, 2019
Tove Ditlevsen was a Danish author publishing books in the mid-20th century. Her poetry, novels and memoirs made her quite famous within her country and she's now accepted as part of the literary canon in Danish primary schools. However, she's little known in the English speaking world because few of her works have been translated until now. Penguin Classics have just released three memoirs concerning her early life grouped together under the title “The Copenhagen Trilogy”. The first book in this series “Childhood” concerns Ditlevsen's earliest memories and follows her childhood being raised in a working class family up until her confirmation. I was immediately struck by the powerful frankness of her prose style and was deeply sympathetic towards her as she felt like she was born out of place: “I feel like I'm a foreigner in this world”.
Read my full review of Childhood by Tove Ditlevsen on LonesomeReader
Read my full review of Childhood by Tove Ditlevsen on LonesomeReader
December 1, 2020
Over drie boeken ga ik drie keer met ongeveer dezelfde woorden beginnen, en het is niet omdat ik lui ben. Ik ben gewoon met hetzelfde vuur enthousiast over drie verschillende titels van een en dezelfde Deense auteur: Tove Ditlevsen. Lees ‘Kindertijd’, lees ‘Jeugd’ en lees ‘Afhankelijkheid’.
Ik tip je Ditlevsen als je wel eens over je schouder kijkt en nadenkt over je roots, je verdiensten, je tekortkomingen, je onzekerheden, je persoonlijke inzichten (die natuurlijk te laat kwamen, dat doen inzichten altijd).
Ik raad je Ditlevsen in het bijzonder aan als je dichterlijke aspiraties hebt of ervan droomt om met een roman in de boekhandel te liggen. Laaf je aan de woorden van deze schrijfster, monkel om haar humor, let op haar beelden en vergelijkingen, onthou hoe mooi het is als je zinnen ongedwongen en natuurlijk stromen, en geniet, geniet, geniet.
Die laatste woorden herhaal ik alweer niet omdat ik lui ben. Ik herhaal ze gewoon om uit te drukken hoe graag en gretig ik deze trilogie heb gelezen.
‘Kindertijd’ is uit het Deens vertaald door Lammie Post-Oostenbrink.
Ik tip je Ditlevsen als je wel eens over je schouder kijkt en nadenkt over je roots, je verdiensten, je tekortkomingen, je onzekerheden, je persoonlijke inzichten (die natuurlijk te laat kwamen, dat doen inzichten altijd).
Ik raad je Ditlevsen in het bijzonder aan als je dichterlijke aspiraties hebt of ervan droomt om met een roman in de boekhandel te liggen. Laaf je aan de woorden van deze schrijfster, monkel om haar humor, let op haar beelden en vergelijkingen, onthou hoe mooi het is als je zinnen ongedwongen en natuurlijk stromen, en geniet, geniet, geniet.
Die laatste woorden herhaal ik alweer niet omdat ik lui ben. Ik herhaal ze gewoon om uit te drukken hoe graag en gretig ik deze trilogie heb gelezen.
‘Kindertijd’ is uit het Deens vertaald door Lammie Post-Oostenbrink.
September 26, 2019
Exquisite, enthralling, pitch perfect.
December 5, 2021
Danimarkalı kadın yazar Tove Ditlevsen (1917-1976) muhtemelen Knausgaard’ın esin kaynaklarından. Hayatını anlattığı yaklaşık yüzer sayfalık olduğu anlaşılan (Knausgaard Ditlevsen’in özlü yazma yönünü ise örnek almamış) Kopenhag Üçlemesi’nin ilk kitabı Çocukluk, zaman zaman içinizi acıtsa da, fazla duygusallığa kaçmayan, mesafeyi koruyan ama etki de yaratan üslubuyla okunmayı hak ediyor. Günümüzün refah toplumlarından Danimarka’nın daha geçen yüzyıl epey bir sefalet yaşadığını da öğreniyoruz bu kitapla. Tabii esas sefalet kaynağı, her dönemde olduğu gibi insan unsuru. Bu seri Thomas Bernhard’ın 5 kısa ciltlik otobiyografik metinlerini de, en azından kavram olarak hatırlatıyor. Çocukluk’un final cümlesini ise aşağıya alıntılamadan edemedim:
“Gece, pencerenin önünden geçedursun, şiir defterimi okuyorum ve ben farkına varmadan, çocukluğum usulca, hayatımın sonuna kadar benim için bir bilgi ve tecrübe kaynağı olacak, şu insan ruhunun kütüphanesi olan belleğimize çöküyor.”
Çocuklukta yaşadıklarımızdan kaçış yok yani…
“Gece, pencerenin önünden geçedursun, şiir defterimi okuyorum ve ben farkına varmadan, çocukluğum usulca, hayatımın sonuna kadar benim için bir bilgi ve tecrübe kaynağı olacak, şu insan ruhunun kütüphanesi olan belleğimize çöküyor.”
Çocuklukta yaşadıklarımızdan kaçış yok yani…
August 23, 2023
Better than Ernaux. At least in discussion of the lower-class plight and its psychological effects. Ditlevsen’s portrayal of her childhood is at once innocent and deeply disturbing. This first book of the three did not show her to have been particularly rueful of the fact that her family was poor. Not on the surface anyway. The primary concern here was the smoothing out of the memories of her complex relationship with her parents. She was drawn to her mother all throughout her childhood, but this was a relationship that began to show cracks. She admits as much:
“I think about the fact that once the most important thing in the world was whether my mother liked me; but the child who yearned so deeply for that love and always had to search for any sign of it doesn’t exist anymore. Now I think that my mother cares for me, but it doesn’t make me happy.”
Her father is much more friendly, but traditional gender roles stifled what may have become a beautiful relationship – he is often discouraged (by Tove’s mother) from creating any sort of bond between himself and Tove. Yet here is what she says about her father:
“Down in the bottom of my childhood my father stands laughing.”
Here are some of the other sections that I found delightful:
Cannot wait for Youth.
“I think about the fact that once the most important thing in the world was whether my mother liked me; but the child who yearned so deeply for that love and always had to search for any sign of it doesn’t exist anymore. Now I think that my mother cares for me, but it doesn’t make me happy.”
Her father is much more friendly, but traditional gender roles stifled what may have become a beautiful relationship – he is often discouraged (by Tove’s mother) from creating any sort of bond between himself and Tove. Yet here is what she says about her father:
“Down in the bottom of my childhood my father stands laughing.”
Here are some of the other sections that I found delightful:
“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.”
“It’s so strange that my mother has never discovered when I’m lying. On the other hand, she almost never believes the truth. I think that much of my childhood is spent trying to figure out her personality, and yet she continues to be just as mysterious and disturbing. Practically the worst thing is that she can hold a grudge for days, consistently refusing to speak to you or listen to what you’re saying, and you never find out how you’ve offended her. She’s the same way with my father.”
“Time passed and my childhood grew thin and flat, paperlike. It was tired and threadbare, and in low moments it didn’t look like it would last until I was grown up.”
Cannot wait for Youth.
August 16, 2023
"Çocukluk tabut gibi uzun ve dar, kendi kendine içinden çıkman mümkün değil; üstüne koku gibi siner. Her çocukluğun kendine has bir kokusu vardır."
Danimarkalı yazar Tove Ditlevsen'in anılarını içeren ünlü Kopenhag üçlemesine sonunda başladım. İlk kitap olan Çocukluk tam beklediğim gibi bir metin; İskandinav edebiyatında alışık olduğumuz sade ama vurucu cümleler, insanın içine işleyen bir yalnızlık ve hüzün hali. Hiç drama kaçmadan nasıl bu kadar can acıtıcı yazmayı başarıyorlar bilmiyorum ama her defasında çok etkileniyorum.
Normalde hep neşeyle andığımız, öyle anmamızın bize öğretildiği çocukluğun kimi zaman nasıl yaralayıcı olabileceğine dair bir kitap bu - bir nevi çocukluğa bir anıt.
Sevdim, devamını daha da çok seveceğimi düşünüyorum. "Güneş yanığı gibi, çocukluğumun son parçacıkları şimdi üstümden pul pul dökülüyor ve altından ters, imkansız bir yetişkin beliriyor."
Danimarkalı yazar Tove Ditlevsen'in anılarını içeren ünlü Kopenhag üçlemesine sonunda başladım. İlk kitap olan Çocukluk tam beklediğim gibi bir metin; İskandinav edebiyatında alışık olduğumuz sade ama vurucu cümleler, insanın içine işleyen bir yalnızlık ve hüzün hali. Hiç drama kaçmadan nasıl bu kadar can acıtıcı yazmayı başarıyorlar bilmiyorum ama her defasında çok etkileniyorum.
Normalde hep neşeyle andığımız, öyle anmamızın bize öğretildiği çocukluğun kimi zaman nasıl yaralayıcı olabileceğine dair bir kitap bu - bir nevi çocukluğa bir anıt.
Sevdim, devamını daha da çok seveceğimi düşünüyorum. "Güneş yanığı gibi, çocukluğumun son parçacıkları şimdi üstümden pul pul dökülüyor ve altından ters, imkansız bir yetişkin beliriyor."
June 29, 2020
Absolutely wonderful! This is the first of three memoirs by the poet, Tove Ditlevsen, who was born in Copenhagen in 1918. As the title suggests, it's about her poor childhood, which she writes about as though it's an object that she tries to hang on to as it becomes increasingly tattered. Tove has secret yearnings to write, but first she must navigate school, her relationship with her best friend Ruth, and her difficult mother. Tove's character is so vivid, so funny and poignant. I will definitely be reading the next two memoirs.
March 22, 2020
Eloquent and intense.
"- and, unawares, 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.”
"- and, unawares, 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.”
April 21, 2021
Ich freue mich, dass die Bücher Tove Ditlevsens wiederentdeckt wurden und nun auch außerhalb Dänemarks gelesen und geschätzt werden. Obwohl ihre Kindheits-erinnerungen fast ein Jahrhundert zurückliegen, haben sie nicht an Aktualität verloren. Immer noch gibt es Armut, lieblose Erziehung, Gewalt gegen Kinder oder gar familiärer Missbrauch. Und immer noch wird sie allzu häufig nicht in den Schulen und Ämtern erkannt. Immer noch ist Alkohol (oder andere Rauschmittel) eine Geißel vieler Familien.
Tove Ditlevsen benennt dies alles ungeschönt, aber nicht mit klagender Stimme. Sie stellt fest, wie es ist. Kindheit ist lang und schmal wie ein Sarg, aus dem man sich nicht allein befreien kann. ... Der Kindheit kann man nicht entkommen, sie hängt an einem wie ein Geruch. ... Dunkel ist die Kindheit, und sie winselt wie ein kleines Tier, das man in einen Keller eingesperrt und vergessen hat. Ihre Kameradinnen finden einen Ausweg in Kleinkriminalität oder frühen sexuellen Beziehungen. Tove, aber, schreibt Gedichte in ihr Poesiealbum. Eine Lehrerin erkennt ihr Talent, aber die Eltern lassen sie nicht aufs Gymnasium. Die Konfirmation ist „der Grabstein der Kindheit“. Ich lese in meinem Poesiealbum, während die Nacht an meinem Fenster vorbeiwandert, und ohne, dass ich es weiß, sinkt meine Kindheit leise auf den Grund der Erinnerungen, dieser Seelenbibliothek, aus der ich bis an mein Lebensende Wissen und Erfahrungen schöpfen werde.
Tove Ditlevsen benennt dies alles ungeschönt, aber nicht mit klagender Stimme. Sie stellt fest, wie es ist. Kindheit ist lang und schmal wie ein Sarg, aus dem man sich nicht allein befreien kann. ... Der Kindheit kann man nicht entkommen, sie hängt an einem wie ein Geruch. ... Dunkel ist die Kindheit, und sie winselt wie ein kleines Tier, das man in einen Keller eingesperrt und vergessen hat. Ihre Kameradinnen finden einen Ausweg in Kleinkriminalität oder frühen sexuellen Beziehungen. Tove, aber, schreibt Gedichte in ihr Poesiealbum. Eine Lehrerin erkennt ihr Talent, aber die Eltern lassen sie nicht aufs Gymnasium. Die Konfirmation ist „der Grabstein der Kindheit“. Ich lese in meinem Poesiealbum, während die Nacht an meinem Fenster vorbeiwandert, und ohne, dass ich es weiß, sinkt meine Kindheit leise auf den Grund der Erinnerungen, dieser Seelenbibliothek, aus der ich bis an mein Lebensende Wissen und Erfahrungen schöpfen werde.
August 29, 2021
şairane bir çocukluk ağıdı gibiydi. iskandinavlar mutsuz çocukluğu anlatma uzmanı gibi bir şeyler bence. tove'nin öyküsünü sevgili arsız ölüm'ün dirmit'ine benzettim biraz; ailesinin içindeki en hisli insan oluşuyla, gizli saklı şiir yazmasıyla, sevgi açlığıyla arkadaşlarına sarılmasıyla sık sık dirmit'i andırdı bana.
çocukluğumuzu her şeye rağmen özleyebilmemiz ne tuhaf.
çocukluğumuzu her şeye rağmen özleyebilmemiz ne tuhaf.
November 8, 2022
Arkadaşlığımız da, çocukluğum gibi sona erdi. Güneş yanığı gibi, çocukluğumun son parçacıkları şimdi üstümden pul pul dökülüyor ve altından ters, imkansız bir yetişkin beliriyor. Gece, pencerenin önünden geçedursun, şiir defterimi okuyorum ve ben farkına varmadan, çocukluğum usulca, hayatımın sonuna kadar benim için bir bilgi ve tecrübe kaynağı olacak, şu insan ruhunun kütüphanesi olan belleğimin dibine çöküyor.
//
Okumaktan asla bıkmayacağım bir tür varsa, bu- anılar hatta spesifik olarak çocukluk anılarıdır diyebilirim. Yine nokta atışı!
Doksan sayfa diye küçümsemeye gelmeyecek kadar çok duygu sığdırmış içine; hüzün, avuntu, belki bazen mutluluk, hüzün, avuntu. Nerden baksan 500 sayfa ama değil işte, tek oturuşta biter niyetiyle başlayıp günleri bulan bir okuma süreci.
Seviyorum bu ruh halini. Neyse o: Cümleleri süslemeden, olduğu gibi dile getirmeleri ama bunu yaparken okurun ruhuna dokunmaları her yazar başaramıyor bence. Nefesin bazen ciğere battığı noktada diyorsun ki evet, Ditlevsen etkisi bu. Soğukkanlılıkla, büyük bir ustalıkla, ilmek ilmek işleyerek yazmış hepsini. Ben çok beğendim.
//
Okumaktan asla bıkmayacağım bir tür varsa, bu- anılar hatta spesifik olarak çocukluk anılarıdır diyebilirim. Yine nokta atışı!
Doksan sayfa diye küçümsemeye gelmeyecek kadar çok duygu sığdırmış içine; hüzün, avuntu, belki bazen mutluluk, hüzün, avuntu. Nerden baksan 500 sayfa ama değil işte, tek oturuşta biter niyetiyle başlayıp günleri bulan bir okuma süreci.
Seviyorum bu ruh halini. Neyse o: Cümleleri süslemeden, olduğu gibi dile getirmeleri ama bunu yaparken okurun ruhuna dokunmaları her yazar başaramıyor bence. Nefesin bazen ciğere battığı noktada diyorsun ki evet, Ditlevsen etkisi bu. Soğukkanlılıkla, büyük bir ustalıkla, ilmek ilmek işleyerek yazmış hepsini. Ben çok beğendim.
August 17, 2023
“A legtöbb felnőtt azt mondja, hogy boldog gyerekkora volt, és talán még el is hiszik, de nekem aztán mondhatják. Szerintem csak sikerült elfelejteniük.”
Nem, nem fogom kimondani, hogy "autofikció". Úgy értem, többet. Úgy értem, ebben az értékelésben többet. Azt gondolom, ez egy elcsépelt irodalmi divatszó lett, amit ráhúznak mindenre, mintha forradalmi újdonság lenne - holott a "minden" egy részét, amivel kapcsolatban puffogtatják, simán hívhatnák egyszerűen mezei önéletrajznak is, esetleg (ha már) önéletrajzi regénynek. Ditlevsen könyve sem azért jó, mert megelőlegzi ezt a műfajt - más dolgok miatt hat frissnek.
a.) Azért, mert kendőzetlenül őszinte igyekszik lenni. Annyira őszinte, hogy a szerző még a fiatalkori zsenge verseit is beleszerkeszti, ami bátrabb dolog, mintha a maszturbációról beszélne. Itt nincs befújva a gyerekkor aranyfüsttel, magányos és kilátástalan térnek tűnik, ahonnan az ember szeretne szabadulni mihamarabb.
b.) Ugyanakkor ez a könyv nem a csapásokról szól - hanem a korlátokról. Következésképpen nem a (borzasztó, megdöbbentő, stb.) történések adnak neki ritmust, hanem az elbeszélő benyomásai. Ettől van a szövegnek egyfajta lebegős, körvonaltalan hangulata.
c.) Ami viszont nem jelenti azt, hogy erőtlen lenne. Ditlevsen talán legnagyobb erénye, hogy ezt az egészet képes egy tündökletesen tiszta és takarékos prózai köntösben felszolgálni. Azt hiszem, ez a tiszta és takarékos kendőzetlenség az, ami maradandó élménnyé teszi a kötetet, olyasvalamivé, amiből lehet tanulni az író-utódoknak.
(Összesített pontszám: 4,3)
Nem, nem fogom kimondani, hogy "autofikció". Úgy értem, többet. Úgy értem, ebben az értékelésben többet. Azt gondolom, ez egy elcsépelt irodalmi divatszó lett, amit ráhúznak mindenre, mintha forradalmi újdonság lenne - holott a "minden" egy részét, amivel kapcsolatban puffogtatják, simán hívhatnák egyszerűen mezei önéletrajznak is, esetleg (ha már) önéletrajzi regénynek. Ditlevsen könyve sem azért jó, mert megelőlegzi ezt a műfajt - más dolgok miatt hat frissnek.
a.) Azért, mert kendőzetlenül őszinte igyekszik lenni. Annyira őszinte, hogy a szerző még a fiatalkori zsenge verseit is beleszerkeszti, ami bátrabb dolog, mintha a maszturbációról beszélne. Itt nincs befújva a gyerekkor aranyfüsttel, magányos és kilátástalan térnek tűnik, ahonnan az ember szeretne szabadulni mihamarabb.
b.) Ugyanakkor ez a könyv nem a csapásokról szól - hanem a korlátokról. Következésképpen nem a (borzasztó, megdöbbentő, stb.) történések adnak neki ritmust, hanem az elbeszélő benyomásai. Ettől van a szövegnek egyfajta lebegős, körvonaltalan hangulata.
c.) Ami viszont nem jelenti azt, hogy erőtlen lenne. Ditlevsen talán legnagyobb erénye, hogy ezt az egészet képes egy tündökletesen tiszta és takarékos prózai köntösben felszolgálni. Azt hiszem, ez a tiszta és takarékos kendőzetlenség az, ami maradandó élménnyé teszi a kötetet, olyasvalamivé, amiből lehet tanulni az író-utódoknak.
(Összesített pontszám: 4,3)
January 22, 2024
I asked a friend who was reading Childhood how she was going with it, and she said, in a msg online, ‘Well when I first started reading it I was next to a pond and had the urge to throw it in lol.’ This was not a criticism. The opposite. Kafka said that books should wound or stab us, and that’s what it was doing to her.
I think this was partly due to the fact that she connected with some aspects of Tove’s experiences, but also partly because of the intense emotional resonance of Ditlevsen’s voice, an intensity restrained by the calmness of her expression. Her style is comparable to Annie Ernaux’s, whose Simple Passion was my last read before Childhood and whose prose I described similarly.
Ditlevsen though is a poet and is the more lyrical writer. Her lyricism works to powerful effect because she’s also blunt and does not waste words. I loved the way she described her childhood, like this thing that was coming off her like flakes of sun-scorched skin, or an experience that was dark and something that moaned like a forgotten animal in a cellar.
I loved the way she described her relationship with her mother, and her home life, and street, and her friendship with Ruth, and her father, and her passion for poetry, and basically everything else.
I think Ditlevsen is brilliant, and Childhood seethes with feeling. A dark, extraordinary book – to me its reputation is utterly justified and I can’t wait to read Youth and Dependency.
I think this was partly due to the fact that she connected with some aspects of Tove’s experiences, but also partly because of the intense emotional resonance of Ditlevsen’s voice, an intensity restrained by the calmness of her expression. Her style is comparable to Annie Ernaux’s, whose Simple Passion was my last read before Childhood and whose prose I described similarly.
Ditlevsen though is a poet and is the more lyrical writer. Her lyricism works to powerful effect because she’s also blunt and does not waste words. I loved the way she described her childhood, like this thing that was coming off her like flakes of sun-scorched skin, or an experience that was dark and something that moaned like a forgotten animal in a cellar.
I loved the way she described her relationship with her mother, and her home life, and street, and her friendship with Ruth, and her father, and her passion for poetry, and basically everything else.
I think Ditlevsen is brilliant, and Childhood seethes with feeling. A dark, extraordinary book – to me its reputation is utterly justified and I can’t wait to read Youth and Dependency.
March 8, 2021
Eine Kindheit in den 1920er Jahren in Kopenhagen. Die kleine Tove ist umgeben von Armut, emotionaler Kälte, Frauenverachtung und sozialer Verwahrlosung. Ihre Eltern sind unnahbar und verständnislos. Sie fühlt sich allein mit ihren Träumen und Gedanken, nur das Lesen und das Schreiben von Gedichten geben ihr Trost.
Das ist eines der Bücher, die die weitverbreitete Aussage, dass Eltern IMMER wollen, dass es ihre Kindern es mal besser haben sollen, so nicht stimmt. All zu oft sind sie aufgrund der eigenen Verbitterung, Enttäuschungen und Beschränkungen zu solchen Wünschen gar nicht in der Lage.
Die beiden Folgebände sind bestellt.
Das ist eines der Bücher, die die weitverbreitete Aussage, dass Eltern IMMER wollen, dass es ihre Kindern es mal besser haben sollen, so nicht stimmt. All zu oft sind sie aufgrund der eigenen Verbitterung, Enttäuschungen und Beschränkungen zu solchen Wünschen gar nicht in der Lage.
Die beiden Folgebände sind bestellt.
April 1, 2022
“Anche se i miei versi non piacciono a nessuno, non posso fare a meno di scriverli, perché leniscono il patimento e gli aneliti del cuore.”
Con delicatezza ed eleganza poetica, Ditlevsen ritrae la sua famiglia (madre, padre, fratello e alcuni parenti stretti )e l’ambiente in cui è cresciuta, con pochi tratti precisi.
Il padre rimasto disoccupato che presto diventa peso e vergogna per la famiglia e la madre, bella e giovane ma dall’umore mutevole
Tove inizia presto a scrivere poesie, a dieci anni, ma nasconde accuratamente a tutti il suo libro di poesie, specialmente alla madre, che sminuisce il valore della scrittura della figlia ritenendo i libri un ricettacolo di bugie
Molto meglio un buon matrimonio, che salvi dalla povertà
Tove ha poche amiche da bambina e si sente sempre un po' diversa.
Ma lei cerca di fingere di essere "normale", a volte fa anche la stupida in modo che gli altri non scoprano a cosa sta davvero pensando: alle poesie che scrive nel suo diario. E sogna sempre di incontrare qualcuno che sarà in grado di capirle
La svolta sarà l'amicizia con Ruth, due anni più piccola, una bambina adottata , “a cui le botte non fanno niente “ più coraggiosa, felice l'opposto di Tove, e con lei Tove farà cose che altrimenti non oserebbe.
L’amicizia, che attenua anche la dipendenza dalla madre, la aiuterà a capire le differenze e i sogni diversi per il futuro rispetto all’amica
Ditlevsen descrive l'infanzia come se fosse un'entità fisica che deve essere nutrita e trattata con cura per poter durare, almeno fino ai 14 anni, quando inevitabilmente diventerà piatta e sottile come la carta
Perché a Vesterbro, in quel quartiere di Copenaghen, l'infanzia finisce proprio a quell’età all'età e a una ragazza seppur di talento, non è permesso andare al ginnasio
“Alle mie spalle ci sono l’infanzia e la scuola, davanti a me c’è una vita ignota e temuta, in mezzo a estranei. ”
Con delicatezza ed eleganza poetica, Ditlevsen ritrae la sua famiglia (madre, padre, fratello e alcuni parenti stretti )e l’ambiente in cui è cresciuta, con pochi tratti precisi.
Il padre rimasto disoccupato che presto diventa peso e vergogna per la famiglia e la madre, bella e giovane ma dall’umore mutevole
Tove inizia presto a scrivere poesie, a dieci anni, ma nasconde accuratamente a tutti il suo libro di poesie, specialmente alla madre, che sminuisce il valore della scrittura della figlia ritenendo i libri un ricettacolo di bugie
Molto meglio un buon matrimonio, che salvi dalla povertà
Tove ha poche amiche da bambina e si sente sempre un po' diversa.
Ma lei cerca di fingere di essere "normale", a volte fa anche la stupida in modo che gli altri non scoprano a cosa sta davvero pensando: alle poesie che scrive nel suo diario. E sogna sempre di incontrare qualcuno che sarà in grado di capirle
La svolta sarà l'amicizia con Ruth, due anni più piccola, una bambina adottata , “a cui le botte non fanno niente “ più coraggiosa, felice l'opposto di Tove, e con lei Tove farà cose che altrimenti non oserebbe.
L’amicizia, che attenua anche la dipendenza dalla madre, la aiuterà a capire le differenze e i sogni diversi per il futuro rispetto all’amica
Ditlevsen descrive l'infanzia come se fosse un'entità fisica che deve essere nutrita e trattata con cura per poter durare, almeno fino ai 14 anni, quando inevitabilmente diventerà piatta e sottile come la carta
Perché a Vesterbro, in quel quartiere di Copenaghen, l'infanzia finisce proprio a quell’età all'età e a una ragazza seppur di talento, non è permesso andare al ginnasio
“Alle mie spalle ci sono l’infanzia e la scuola, davanti a me c’è una vita ignota e temuta, in mezzo a estranei. ”
July 2, 2021
‘Çocukluk tabut gibi uzun ve dar, kendi kendine içinden çıkmak mümkün değil.’
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Geçen yıl Thomas Bernhard’ın beşlemesini okuyunca; insanın kendine bu kadar çıplak kalabilmesini nasıl mümkün olabilir diye düşünmüştüm.
Nasıl çocukluğunu anlatabilir? Anımsamak bir yana bunu kaleme dökebilmek nasıldır diye uzun uzun düşünmüştüm.
Elbette pek çok yazarın kendini anlatabildiğini biliyordum, çocukluğu- gençliği, tüy hafifliğindeki günlerinden omuzlarına binen betonlara kadar.
Bu bana büyüleyici geliyor.
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Tove Ditlevsen de bu büyüleyici anlatımın içine çekti beni. Çocukluğunun karanlık- yalnız geçmesi değildi beni etkileyen. Algılarıydı. Yarı aç geçen çocukluğunda şiir yazabilmesiydi, hayaller kurabilmesiydi.
Bunları anlatırken kullandığı saf dildi.
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Tove Ditlevsen’in hayatını da araştırdım, bu kitabı okuyup onunla tanıştıktan sonra. Alkol ve madde bağımlılığıyla boğuşup sonunda ölümünü kendi seçen bir kadın o. Yazmaktan hiç vazgeçmeyen, her fotoğrafında yarım gülüşünün gizleyemediği zeka parıltılarını saçan..
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Kopenhag Üçlemesinin ilk kitabıydı Çocukluk. Diliyorum ki sıradaki iki kitap için fazla beklemeyiz. Şimdiden heyecanla bekliyorum!
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Dancadan çeviride Leyla Tamer yer alırken; kapak tasarımı Sancar Dalman çalışması ~
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Geçen yıl Thomas Bernhard’ın beşlemesini okuyunca; insanın kendine bu kadar çıplak kalabilmesini nasıl mümkün olabilir diye düşünmüştüm.
Nasıl çocukluğunu anlatabilir? Anımsamak bir yana bunu kaleme dökebilmek nasıldır diye uzun uzun düşünmüştüm.
Elbette pek çok yazarın kendini anlatabildiğini biliyordum, çocukluğu- gençliği, tüy hafifliğindeki günlerinden omuzlarına binen betonlara kadar.
Bu bana büyüleyici geliyor.
.
Tove Ditlevsen de bu büyüleyici anlatımın içine çekti beni. Çocukluğunun karanlık- yalnız geçmesi değildi beni etkileyen. Algılarıydı. Yarı aç geçen çocukluğunda şiir yazabilmesiydi, hayaller kurabilmesiydi.
Bunları anlatırken kullandığı saf dildi.
.
Tove Ditlevsen’in hayatını da araştırdım, bu kitabı okuyup onunla tanıştıktan sonra. Alkol ve madde bağımlılığıyla boğuşup sonunda ölümünü kendi seçen bir kadın o. Yazmaktan hiç vazgeçmeyen, her fotoğrafında yarım gülüşünün gizleyemediği zeka parıltılarını saçan..
.
Kopenhag Üçlemesinin ilk kitabıydı Çocukluk. Diliyorum ki sıradaki iki kitap için fazla beklemeyiz. Şimdiden heyecanla bekliyorum!
.
Dancadan çeviride Leyla Tamer yer alırken; kapak tasarımı Sancar Dalman çalışması ~
November 25, 2021
Otobiyografik ögeler taşıyan ‘Çocukluk’, Danimarkalı yazar Tove Ditlevsen’in ‘Kopenhag Üçlemesi’nin ilk kitabı. Tam da ikinci kitap ‘Gençlik’in hemen öncesinde okumak istedim kitabı. Çevrileceği duyurulduğu günden beri çok merak ediyordum. Bir çırpıda bitirdim. Artık şuna eminim: Kuzey Avrupalılar ‘geçmiş’i çok iyi kaleme alıyor. Hepimizin hayatındaki aksak noktaları müthiş cımbızlıyorlar. (Belki de bu yüzden o coğrafyanın edebiyatını çok seviyorum, bilmiyorum) ‘Çocukluk’ tam da tahmin edilebileceği gibi Karl Ove Knausgård ile Elena Ferrante’nin ‘Kavgam’ ve ‘Napoli’ serilerinin birleşimi tadında. Knausgård kadar detaycı, Ferrante kadar akıcı. Bende öyle derin izler bırakan bir kitap olmasa da, beklediğim gibi sarsmasa da yine de büyük bir ilgiyle ve keyifle okudum.
January 31, 2021
Ja, es ist den Hype wert!
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