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Wikipedia tells me that the novel I've just finished reading, "Will and Testament (Norwegian: Arv og miljø) is an absurdist fiction novel written by Norwegian author Vigdis Hjorth."
I was about to protest the word "absurdist"—the novel captivated me with its crystalline realism—but then I clicked on the link to the entry on absurdist fiction, and I forgave Wikipedia, although I still resist any implication of meaninglessness.
As much as I would like to recommend this novel without spoilers, it's important to reveal that emerging memories of incestuous rape are part of its story and its energy.
As the narrative starts, the three sisters and a brother grapple with family conflict over an apparently unfair division of their inheritance. The stakes get higher when their mother overdoses, and later, when their father has a fatal accident.
(But was that division of the inheritance truly unfair or isn't it?—even the central character, daughter Bergljot, wants justice but not to be bribed for her silence or forced to reconcile with a family that doesn't believe her.)
Once that basic conflict over the inheritance (and the alienation Bergljot persistently defends) had fully engaged me, several constant features of Hjorth's writing kept pulling me deeper in. Some of them touched on my own experiences, and some echoed my family history.
The first element is obsessive repetition, Bergljot's need to keep returning to her wounds, grievances, arguments, suspicions, self-doubts, self-justifications, over and over.
I thought to myself, don't I too lose sleep rehearsing what unfair thing had happened to me, and what I would say when I got my day in court, so to speak, and what chances were there that anyone would believe or even hear me?
As Bergljot tries to cope with all these personal uncertainties (including a mother who seems to attempt suicide as a way of punishing the alienated daughter), her feverish prose reflects her stress:
I existed in a trance of fear, of loss, it was fog and confusion, I did the laundry. It felt like I was drowning in laundry, I hated doing the laundry, back when my life was normal, that is to say numb, I used to regard it as the dullest, most exhausting chore, having to do the never-ending laundry. The contents of the laundry basket and the mountains of clothes lying next to the overflowing laundry basket, the heavy bedsheets and duvet covers and tablecloths as well as curtains, piles of underpants and socks and dirty tea towels, I would curse all that laundry back when my life had been simple and undramatic. If it hadn’t been for all that laundry, I used to think back then, then I would have been more content, I would have been able to read the books I ought to read and longed to read, but rather than read them, I was forced to start yet another load of washing and when that was finished, I had to hang up the heavy, unmanageable sheets to dry, and it would rain or it would be winter so I had to drape them over doors and chairs because the clothes horses were too small and already covered with socks and pants and shirts and tops, I cursed the laundry. But now that my world had imploded and I was raging and grieving, it was the laundry that kept me going, the time it took to do the laundry and hang it up and when it was finally dry, to fold it, put it away in the cupboards when the children were asleep at night, and then fall asleep myself knowing the laundry had been done and dried and folded and was ready, clean and waiting in the cupboards, I’m surviving on laundry, I thought to myself.
She looks for comfort in marriage and affairs, but mostly in alcohol. Over and over, she retreats into the fog of glass after glass of beer or red wine. Her stresses leak into her dreams, and she turns to psychotherapy.
Four times a week I lay on the couch talking in turns about pain, shame and the minutiae of everyday life, and every now and then we would suddenly experience a breakthrough. I dreamt that I picked up a hitchhiker who was going to Drøbak, as was I. Then I took a wrong turn, I went off the main road to Drøbak, I got lost and couldn’t find my way back to the main road, and I felt guilty on account of the hitchhiker who was inconvenienced by my uselessness and would be late getting to Drøbak. Then I thought I saw the main road, the lights from the main road; if I drove under the garage door in front of me, I would get back on it. I had accelerated to drive under the garage door when it started to close, I stepped on the gas to get through before it closed completely, but didn’t make it, it came down too quickly and it slammed into the car, we were startled and shocked, but at least we were alive, the hitchhiker ashen-faced and with his trouser pockets turned out and the car a complete write-off. Then Mum showed up and said in her usual cheerful manner that it could probably be fixed, although everyone could see that was impossible. Then I spotted a five-øre coin on the road and bent down to pick it up because finding money brings good luck, and I told myself by way of consolation that it might turn out to be my lucky day after all. I picked it up only to discover that it was just a button.
A five-year-old? he asked.
No, a five-øre coin, I said.
You said a five-year-old, he said.
I meant a five-øre coin, I said, and repeated my dream: When the garage door came down, it felt as if I was crushed.
Almost as crushed as a five-year-old, he said, and I felt an electric shock go through me.
As I read her recounting this dream to her therapist, I absolutely recognized having had similar dreams about my life and my parents. As for the role alcohol played in my family, I don't even want to start.
Bergljot is a dramatic arts magazine editor and theater critic, so it is not surprising that writers and poets are mentioned and quoted: In the midst of crisis, she goes to see Henrik Ibsen's Peer Gynt, for example, in an intriguing updated staging. The Danish writer and poet Tove Ditlevsen, and the Norwegian poet Rolf Jacobsen, also flash by several times.
Bergljot demands that her family believe her account of her father's crimes. After all, if she made up all these public charges, she would be a monster, in which case why is everyone demanding that she return to the family? This endless loop of contradictions doesn't get resolved in the novel, leaving us readers to ponder what a resolution might look like—in Bergljot's life and in yours and mine. At the end, just a reminder: trauma is intergenerational, and children have questions of their own.
Have I always been grieving? Is grief my default setting? And is it only the emotional side of my grief that has lessened? Deep down have I always been sad? Only when I’m calm, when I’m alone, when I work intensely, is my sadness less painful. That’s why I’m calm, that’s why I work so hard, that’s why I’m alone.
...
... Every war ever fought on this earth has proved that you can’t ignore history, sweep it under the carpet, and that if you want to reduce history’s destructive impact on the future, everyone’s version of what happened must be brought out into the open and acknowledged.
Suddenly – in December
Suddenly – In December. I stand knee-deep in snow
Talk to you and get no answer. You’re keeping quiet.
My love, now it’s happened after all. Our whole life,
the smiles, the tears and the courage. Your sewing machine
and the long nights of work. Finally our travels:
– under the snow. Under the wreath of cedar.It all went so fast. Two staring eyes. Words
I couldn’t catch, that you said over and over.
And suddenly nothing more. You slept.
– And now they’re all lying here, days and summer nights,
the grapes in Valladolid, the sunsets in Nemea
– under the snow. Under the wreath of cedar.Quick as a switch flicking off,
the tracings behind the eye flash out,
wiped from the slate of a life-span. Or maybe not?
Your new dress, my face and our old stairs
and everything you brought to this house. Is it gone
– under the snow. Under the wreath of cedar?Dear friend, where is our happiness now,
your good hands, your young smile,
your hair’s wreath of light on your forehead and that
girlish glint in your eye, your spirit and
steady abundance of life and hope?
– under the snow. Under the wreath of cedar.Companion beyond death. Take me down with you.
Side by side, let us see the unknown.
It’s so desolate here and the hour is getting dark.
The words are few now and no one’s listening anymore.
Dearest, you who are sleeping. Eurydice.
– under the snow. Under the wreath of cedar.Rolf Jacobsen (this poem was partially quoted in Will and Testament). Translation by Roger Greenwald, published in Did I Know You? Selected Poems.
Vigdis Hjorth's novel, with its elements drawn from her own life, became controversial in Norway when her own family members objected to the publication of these supposed family revelations. For more on this aspect of the novel, see the reviews by Holly Williams in the Observer, and by Lara Feigel in the Guardian.
Tim Adams interviews Vigdis Hjorth.
Natasha Sholl on writing people you know.
I'm very interested in the ethics of disclosure of family secrets in autobiographical writing. I've been fairly open about my own experiences on this blog, in part to make up for an incident I've probably told before. One day after a particularly painful beating the previous evening that I'd received for some undoubted mischief on my part, I ran into a neighbor on our apartment building's stairs. What was all that shrieking and crying that was coming from your apartment last night? she asked. Without missing a beat, I answered that we must have had the television on too loud.
In the aftermath of Charlie Kirk's unjustifiable and tragic death yesterday in Orem, Utah, in the online world we're often being presented with a menu of two choices for our response. Kirk is a worthy martyr, ultimate victim of leftist cancel culture, or he was a fascist fanatic and a Christian heretic. I appreciated this calm appraisal. I can grieve his loss and pray for his family and friends while continuing to reject his theology and its political enmeshments.
Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum (Foreign Affairs) on "The Logic Behind Trump’s Assault on the Administrative State."
Ungoverning also dissolves the branches of government and unifies the separation of powers into a single office—or more accurately, a single person. It is not about creating what some constitutional scholars call a “unitary presidency”: an executive branch that responds to the president’s directives. It is about creating a strongman. This motivation explains Trump’s reliance on executive orders, which signal not only policy shifts but also the necessity of personal command. As Trump once put it, 'I alone can fix it.'
...
In his desire to weaken the state and rebuild it around him, he has made chaos the new standard. The range of future possibilities for Washington is thus wide. It is reasonable to wonder whether there will even be a regular presidential election in 2028. Trump, after all, has flirted with the idea of seeking a third term; his official store sells 'Trump 2028' hats. The worst-case scenarios seem more plausible than ever before.
Philip Gulley on good goodbyes. (На русском языке.)
On 9/11, we remember that war does not work. (From the Daily Quaker Message, which again I highly recommend.)
Rick Holmstrom, "Lucinda."
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