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Companions
Camilla, Charles, Alma, Edward, Alwilda and Kristian are a circle of friends hurtling through mid-life. Structured as a series of monologues jumping from one friend to the next, Companions follows their loves, ambitions, pains and anxieties as they age, fall sick, have affairs, grieve, host dinner parties and move between the Lake District, Berlin, Lisbon, Belgrade, Mozambique, New York and, of course, Denmark. In her first book to be translated into English, Christina Hesselholdt explores everyday life, the weight of the past and the difficulty of intimacy in a uniquely playful and experimental style. At once deeply comic and remarkably insightful, Companions is an exhilarating portrait of life in the twenty-first century.
408 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2012
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November 12, 2017
(Camilla)
-Når man er alene, risikerer man ingenting.
-Men er det helt sandt?
(Jeg talte med mig selv).
Agterudsejlet. Engelsk: marooned - o'erne som en skylle af vand over rælingen på skibet man nu kun aner i horisonten.
-Det er også noget værre noget, de har svigtet dig alle sammen, sagde naboen, lige uden for min store have, hvor vi var mødtes, hvor jeg stod og græd.
-Min mor kan jo ikke gøre for hun er død, sagde jeg, og Charles - det er som det skal være, vi kunne ikke holde hinanden ud.
-Nå, så var det jo godt det samme.
...
[Camilla]
When you are alone you do risk nothing.
‘But is that entirely true?’
(I was talking to myself).
Marooned – the o’s like a spray of water over the railing of a ship that can now just be glimpsed on the horizon.
‘That is just terrible, they have all failed you,’ the neighbour said, right outside my large garden where we had met, where I stood crying.
‘Of course my mum can’t help that because she's dead,’ I said, ‘and Charles – it is as it should be, we couldn’t put up with one another.
‘Well, then it’s just as well.’
Fitzcarraldo Editions is a small independent UK publisher which “focuses on ambitious, imaginative and innovative writing, both in translation and in the English language”, something they have certainly achieved with heavyweight books such as Matthias Enard’s brilliant
Zone and Compass, as well as one of my books of 2016 Pond, the 2017 Republic of Consciousness Prize winner Counternarratives and the MBI longlisted Bricks and Mortar). In essay form they also are the UK publishers of Nobel Prize winning Svetlana Alexievich. And as a subscriber I also love the design of the books – distinctive blue paperbacks “with French flaps, using a custom serif typeface (called Fitzcarraldo)”.
Their latest, Companions, is another worthy addition. It tells the story of 6 close friends, originally 3 (childless) couples in their 40s, although they all separate, and then recombine into different pairings, before or during the novel: Camilla & Charles (the obvious joke is noted), Edward & Aldwilda (already separated when the book begins) and Alma & Kristian.
In Denmark, Companions was originally published as four separate novellas published at two-yearly intervals from 2008 to 2014 - Camilla and the Horse Camilla and the horse, Camilla and the Rest of the PartyCamilla - og resten af selskabet, The Party Breaks Up Selskabet gør op and Marooned Agterudsejlet – but here they have been translated, by Paul Russell Garrett, and printed in one volume.
The influence of Virginia Woolf’s The Waves is explicitly acknowledged, and the story is narrated, mostly as monologues, by the six different voices of the companions as we follow their thoughts on their lives, on death, relationships, ageing and illness as well as on art. For, in particular, this is a book steeped in literature:
Camilla, a lecturer and writer, is per Alma, her friend since childhood, has a voracious appetite for literature and Alma herself is a published novelist (indeed later on she writes one of the stories that appears earlier in this novel), both women inspired by Camilla’s mother (more of a mother to Alma than her own).
Alma accompanies Camilla on a literary pilgrimage to where Woolf lived, wrote and died and Alma, talking to the ageing custodian at Monk’s House (https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/monk...), who thinks that her books are ‘lacking in plot’, comments:
He believes that first and foremost she was ‘of significance’ to feminism. I feel compelled to enlighten him and say that he is mistaken, she is one of the foremost literary innovators of the twentieth century.
‘How so?’ he asks, suddenly stern
‘By means,’ I reply, ‘of her...’ I hesitate, should I mention how she condenses time so a day becomes a lifetime? Should I mention the emphasis she places on the life of the consciousness and the exchange between the consciousness and the world., or how easy she makes time move both forward and backward? But It is her ability to compress and saturate that makes me happy. Where is Camilla? She would be able to answer.
The influences of works by Iris Murdoch, Vladimir Nabakov, Lawrence Durrell and Thomas Bernhard are also explicit in the story, and others referenced or quoted also include (at least – I’m sure I missed several others): Roland Barthes, Wordsworth, Sylvia Plath, Colette, Coleridge (father and daughter), the Brontës, Herta Müller, Slavoj Žižek, Jean Genet, Horace McCoy, Nikolai Gogol, Jonathan Swift, VS Naipaul, Joan Didion, Thomas Beckett, Knut Hamsun, Bruno Schulz, TS Eliot, Hemingway, Mark Twain, Shakespeare, AA Milne, Gertrude Stein, Epicurus, Søren Kierkegaard, Fyodor Dostoevsky and Guy de Maupassant; but also (this is not wholly high-browed) Enid Blyton, JK Rowling and even Alistair Maclean (I loved him, when I was young. Oh, Ice Station Zebra) a brutal scene from whose Puppet on a String Alma recalls when her in-laws form a close circle around her and her husband in the ritual dance at their traditional wedding.
Charles and Camilla live, as do the others, a bohemian lifestyle. They attend a German strip club together where Camilla tries to sell “her stallion, Prince Charles” to the women (hence the title of the first novella) to a Romanian prostitute. But first Camilla asks her for views on Herta Müller. Literary references are never far from Camilla’s mind:
[Camilla]
I had to go to Belgrade to give a couple of lectures, and Charles was unable to travel with me. I am a literary figure, but might have preferred to be an architect. I have a strong sense of space, I am touching my heart at this very moment. My hotel was red on the inside, Twin Peaks red; the receptionist was a legal practitioner. His life had not turned out as he had imagined. Unlike mine, he commented, referring to my visit to the institute as evidence. Though his current position, working as a receptionist for his younger brother – this was his brother’s hotel – did give him the opportunity to put his law degree to use on occasion. For instance when he had to communicate with and show around the supervisory health authorities, ‘because it demands an understanding of the law’. I wondered what it might be comparable to. Perhaps, for example, if a qualified house painter only used his qualification to buy paint for his own house, no, consider the opposite instead, how when her daughter lay dying in hospital, the author Joan Didion purchased surgical clothing and walked around the hospital ward wearing it, all the while offering sound advice to the doctors, until finally they told her that if she did not stop interfering with their treatment, they would have nothing more to do with her case, she would have to take over herself. That would be equivalent to a person, while a painter is working on their home, wearing white paint-stained clothes and standing on a ladder next to him. Welcome to my labyrinth.
And it is on another literary pilgrimage – this time to Wordsworth country – that Alma and Kristian’s relationship starts to founder:
[Alma]
That we that once existed, it no longer exists. How I loved that we. How it fulfilled me.
My husband was with me. He is tired of me never saying we any more, only I. But I forget to be mindful of that, and the next time I talk about a trip we went on, an experience we shared, I find myself saying I again.
He was with me on my ramble through the Lake District, and Dorothy Wordsworth had rambled through these hills just as much as her brother William had: on several occasions WW wrote poems based on her notes. But regardless of whether the event was witnessed in the company of Dorothy or was Dorothy’s own unique experience, r always used the personal pronoun ‘I’ on his poems. For example, she was the first to see the daffodils, (hundreds of daffodils along a lake) and her description formed the basis for what must be his most famous poem of all, ‘I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud.
Kristian on the same journey visits Rydal Mount, the Wordsworth family home, and comments on the Joseph Wright painting made from ‘The Grot’, a summerhouse designed for viewing a waterfall:
Perhaps the water was so tame because the moment it was selected as a motif it was cultivated ... I realised that the essence of art is to force a particular way of viewing upon other.
In the second novella, Charles back problems become crippling, and he is bedridden, the party referred to in the title being the gatherings they increasing make around his bed. Alma comments on the group:
[Alma]
She (Aldwilda) is the only one of us who does not want anything other than what she already has. As far as I know.
Kristian wants a child. Charles wants a new back. I want a wife without heating pads, where I write like I played the piano, flip page after page until suddenly I have pumped out an entire book. Camilla wishes her mind did not resemble greasy dishwater, or how does she describe it: like a bag filled with slips of paper, you stick your hand in and pull one out: Guilt, it reads. Defensiveness. Bitterness. The need to blame.
But all of this I am unable to recognise - in Camilla.
Missing from this particular occasion is Edward, separated from Mathilda, and mourning his parents, his thoughts recorded in a mourning diary (the echo of Barthes is later noted):
[Edward]
People with the need for order and perhaps also a belief in progress have invented the concept of stages of grief; here I imagine a system of locks. As though the person in mourning was a boat on a river, the river of sorrow, you might say, full of locks that ease the person ahead, and further ahead, towards the open sea, the reconciliation with death and loss where a new future is possible.
I am the kind of man who lives in a death house. Literally. I moved into my parents’ home when they passed away. Joint suicide. They loved to demonstrate their rock-hard realism whenever possible. Their realist and Socratic position, I would say. Life as an illness. Goodbye and thank you, we’re slipping away now. While we can still do it ourselves. Very considerate. Nonetheless a shock. For a long time. Death by hanging. Whoever had to kick out the chair from the other then had to kick out their own chair. It was probably my mum. I was a child of older parents. I am now the same age as my mum was when she gave birth to me. Forty five. I was ashamed of their sagging faces when they turned up at school among the crowd of athletic activist parents, primarily young parents. There were a few with potbellies. I did not change the house much. Once in a while I go down to the rec room, a monument to the seventies; if you put your ear to the wall, you can hear the faint echo of Abba; I take a seat by the dark, wooden bar and grab a glass (I suppose I am lonely), or I continue my losing battle with the billiard table, just a couple of shots. Thirty years ago, we used to kiss down here. With the old folks pacing nervously back and forth in the room above. And once in a while they would poke their heads down to make sure nobody got pregnant. I remember seeing my dad standing in the doorway once when I was crawling on the floor drinking Bacardi from the bottle; he pretended not to see me and shut the door behind him. Then everyone drove off on their mopeds and it was over. Someone had thrown up in the hedge. It is a terraced house, meaning the neighbour woke up to find white garlands hanging from their side of the hedge.
[…]
I never realised how much it helped them that they had each other. The more disabilities that turned up, the less so, I think. Their pains isolated them from one another, I think. I have no idea how they got up on the chairs, she with her osteoporosis and a compression fracture in the spine, he with his Scheuerman’s, the failed operation on his herniated disk, the numb leg that he had to drag around; how did they even get up there; one final, caring, joint endeavour, or did he snap at her even in that situation?
The third novella, has the ‘party’ but also various of the relationships, breaking up and spouses increasingly replaced by animal and other companions: Edward gets a dog, Camilla a literal horse [bringing the novel full circle]), Aldwilda a string of lovers, Alma gets Edward and Kristian decides (at least verbally) to head to Syria to join the conflict.
And by the fourth novel Camilla is marooned – as per the quote that opens my review - her beloved mother also dead, and separated from Charles. The title of this section is (I understand from Danish reviews) taken from Howard Pyle’s painting Marooned:
Overall, an impressive work full of literature and life. My one reservation is that, having originally been issued a 4 novellas over 6 years, read back to back it becomes rather intense.
Excerpts:
https://fitzcarraldoeditions.com/book...
https://granta.com/death-house/
Some very helpful reviews:
http://www.splitlipmagazine.com/917-r...
https://thebookbindersdaughter.com/20...
-Når man er alene, risikerer man ingenting.
-Men er det helt sandt?
(Jeg talte med mig selv).
Agterudsejlet. Engelsk: marooned - o'erne som en skylle af vand over rælingen på skibet man nu kun aner i horisonten.
-Det er også noget værre noget, de har svigtet dig alle sammen, sagde naboen, lige uden for min store have, hvor vi var mødtes, hvor jeg stod og græd.
-Min mor kan jo ikke gøre for hun er død, sagde jeg, og Charles - det er som det skal være, vi kunne ikke holde hinanden ud.
-Nå, så var det jo godt det samme.
...
[Camilla]
When you are alone you do risk nothing.
‘But is that entirely true?’
(I was talking to myself).
Marooned – the o’s like a spray of water over the railing of a ship that can now just be glimpsed on the horizon.
‘That is just terrible, they have all failed you,’ the neighbour said, right outside my large garden where we had met, where I stood crying.
‘Of course my mum can’t help that because she's dead,’ I said, ‘and Charles – it is as it should be, we couldn’t put up with one another.
‘Well, then it’s just as well.’
Fitzcarraldo Editions is a small independent UK publisher which “focuses on ambitious, imaginative and innovative writing, both in translation and in the English language”, something they have certainly achieved with heavyweight books such as Matthias Enard’s brilliant
Zone and Compass, as well as one of my books of 2016 Pond, the 2017 Republic of Consciousness Prize winner Counternarratives and the MBI longlisted Bricks and Mortar). In essay form they also are the UK publishers of Nobel Prize winning Svetlana Alexievich. And as a subscriber I also love the design of the books – distinctive blue paperbacks “with French flaps, using a custom serif typeface (called Fitzcarraldo)”.
Their latest, Companions, is another worthy addition. It tells the story of 6 close friends, originally 3 (childless) couples in their 40s, although they all separate, and then recombine into different pairings, before or during the novel: Camilla & Charles (the obvious joke is noted), Edward & Aldwilda (already separated when the book begins) and Alma & Kristian.
In Denmark, Companions was originally published as four separate novellas published at two-yearly intervals from 2008 to 2014 - Camilla and the Horse Camilla and the horse, Camilla and the Rest of the PartyCamilla - og resten af selskabet, The Party Breaks Up Selskabet gør op and Marooned Agterudsejlet – but here they have been translated, by Paul Russell Garrett, and printed in one volume.
The influence of Virginia Woolf’s The Waves is explicitly acknowledged, and the story is narrated, mostly as monologues, by the six different voices of the companions as we follow their thoughts on their lives, on death, relationships, ageing and illness as well as on art. For, in particular, this is a book steeped in literature:
Camilla, a lecturer and writer, is per Alma, her friend since childhood, has a voracious appetite for literature and Alma herself is a published novelist (indeed later on she writes one of the stories that appears earlier in this novel), both women inspired by Camilla’s mother (more of a mother to Alma than her own).
Alma accompanies Camilla on a literary pilgrimage to where Woolf lived, wrote and died and Alma, talking to the ageing custodian at Monk’s House (https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/monk...), who thinks that her books are ‘lacking in plot’, comments:
He believes that first and foremost she was ‘of significance’ to feminism. I feel compelled to enlighten him and say that he is mistaken, she is one of the foremost literary innovators of the twentieth century.
‘How so?’ he asks, suddenly stern
‘By means,’ I reply, ‘of her...’ I hesitate, should I mention how she condenses time so a day becomes a lifetime? Should I mention the emphasis she places on the life of the consciousness and the exchange between the consciousness and the world., or how easy she makes time move both forward and backward? But It is her ability to compress and saturate that makes me happy. Where is Camilla? She would be able to answer.
The influences of works by Iris Murdoch, Vladimir Nabakov, Lawrence Durrell and Thomas Bernhard are also explicit in the story, and others referenced or quoted also include (at least – I’m sure I missed several others): Roland Barthes, Wordsworth, Sylvia Plath, Colette, Coleridge (father and daughter), the Brontës, Herta Müller, Slavoj Žižek, Jean Genet, Horace McCoy, Nikolai Gogol, Jonathan Swift, VS Naipaul, Joan Didion, Thomas Beckett, Knut Hamsun, Bruno Schulz, TS Eliot, Hemingway, Mark Twain, Shakespeare, AA Milne, Gertrude Stein, Epicurus, Søren Kierkegaard, Fyodor Dostoevsky and Guy de Maupassant; but also (this is not wholly high-browed) Enid Blyton, JK Rowling and even Alistair Maclean (I loved him, when I was young. Oh, Ice Station Zebra) a brutal scene from whose Puppet on a String Alma recalls when her in-laws form a close circle around her and her husband in the ritual dance at their traditional wedding.
Charles and Camilla live, as do the others, a bohemian lifestyle. They attend a German strip club together where Camilla tries to sell “her stallion, Prince Charles” to the women (hence the title of the first novella) to a Romanian prostitute. But first Camilla asks her for views on Herta Müller. Literary references are never far from Camilla’s mind:
[Camilla]
I had to go to Belgrade to give a couple of lectures, and Charles was unable to travel with me. I am a literary figure, but might have preferred to be an architect. I have a strong sense of space, I am touching my heart at this very moment. My hotel was red on the inside, Twin Peaks red; the receptionist was a legal practitioner. His life had not turned out as he had imagined. Unlike mine, he commented, referring to my visit to the institute as evidence. Though his current position, working as a receptionist for his younger brother – this was his brother’s hotel – did give him the opportunity to put his law degree to use on occasion. For instance when he had to communicate with and show around the supervisory health authorities, ‘because it demands an understanding of the law’. I wondered what it might be comparable to. Perhaps, for example, if a qualified house painter only used his qualification to buy paint for his own house, no, consider the opposite instead, how when her daughter lay dying in hospital, the author Joan Didion purchased surgical clothing and walked around the hospital ward wearing it, all the while offering sound advice to the doctors, until finally they told her that if she did not stop interfering with their treatment, they would have nothing more to do with her case, she would have to take over herself. That would be equivalent to a person, while a painter is working on their home, wearing white paint-stained clothes and standing on a ladder next to him. Welcome to my labyrinth.
And it is on another literary pilgrimage – this time to Wordsworth country – that Alma and Kristian’s relationship starts to founder:
[Alma]
That we that once existed, it no longer exists. How I loved that we. How it fulfilled me.
My husband was with me. He is tired of me never saying we any more, only I. But I forget to be mindful of that, and the next time I talk about a trip we went on, an experience we shared, I find myself saying I again.
He was with me on my ramble through the Lake District, and Dorothy Wordsworth had rambled through these hills just as much as her brother William had: on several occasions WW wrote poems based on her notes. But regardless of whether the event was witnessed in the company of Dorothy or was Dorothy’s own unique experience, r always used the personal pronoun ‘I’ on his poems. For example, she was the first to see the daffodils, (hundreds of daffodils along a lake) and her description formed the basis for what must be his most famous poem of all, ‘I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud.
Kristian on the same journey visits Rydal Mount, the Wordsworth family home, and comments on the Joseph Wright painting made from ‘The Grot’, a summerhouse designed for viewing a waterfall:
Perhaps the water was so tame because the moment it was selected as a motif it was cultivated ... I realised that the essence of art is to force a particular way of viewing upon other.
In the second novella, Charles back problems become crippling, and he is bedridden, the party referred to in the title being the gatherings they increasing make around his bed. Alma comments on the group:
[Alma]
She (Aldwilda) is the only one of us who does not want anything other than what she already has. As far as I know.
Kristian wants a child. Charles wants a new back. I want a wife without heating pads, where I write like I played the piano, flip page after page until suddenly I have pumped out an entire book. Camilla wishes her mind did not resemble greasy dishwater, or how does she describe it: like a bag filled with slips of paper, you stick your hand in and pull one out: Guilt, it reads. Defensiveness. Bitterness. The need to blame.
But all of this I am unable to recognise - in Camilla.
Missing from this particular occasion is Edward, separated from Mathilda, and mourning his parents, his thoughts recorded in a mourning diary (the echo of Barthes is later noted):
[Edward]
People with the need for order and perhaps also a belief in progress have invented the concept of stages of grief; here I imagine a system of locks. As though the person in mourning was a boat on a river, the river of sorrow, you might say, full of locks that ease the person ahead, and further ahead, towards the open sea, the reconciliation with death and loss where a new future is possible.
I am the kind of man who lives in a death house. Literally. I moved into my parents’ home when they passed away. Joint suicide. They loved to demonstrate their rock-hard realism whenever possible. Their realist and Socratic position, I would say. Life as an illness. Goodbye and thank you, we’re slipping away now. While we can still do it ourselves. Very considerate. Nonetheless a shock. For a long time. Death by hanging. Whoever had to kick out the chair from the other then had to kick out their own chair. It was probably my mum. I was a child of older parents. I am now the same age as my mum was when she gave birth to me. Forty five. I was ashamed of their sagging faces when they turned up at school among the crowd of athletic activist parents, primarily young parents. There were a few with potbellies. I did not change the house much. Once in a while I go down to the rec room, a monument to the seventies; if you put your ear to the wall, you can hear the faint echo of Abba; I take a seat by the dark, wooden bar and grab a glass (I suppose I am lonely), or I continue my losing battle with the billiard table, just a couple of shots. Thirty years ago, we used to kiss down here. With the old folks pacing nervously back and forth in the room above. And once in a while they would poke their heads down to make sure nobody got pregnant. I remember seeing my dad standing in the doorway once when I was crawling on the floor drinking Bacardi from the bottle; he pretended not to see me and shut the door behind him. Then everyone drove off on their mopeds and it was over. Someone had thrown up in the hedge. It is a terraced house, meaning the neighbour woke up to find white garlands hanging from their side of the hedge.
[…]
I never realised how much it helped them that they had each other. The more disabilities that turned up, the less so, I think. Their pains isolated them from one another, I think. I have no idea how they got up on the chairs, she with her osteoporosis and a compression fracture in the spine, he with his Scheuerman’s, the failed operation on his herniated disk, the numb leg that he had to drag around; how did they even get up there; one final, caring, joint endeavour, or did he snap at her even in that situation?
The third novella, has the ‘party’ but also various of the relationships, breaking up and spouses increasingly replaced by animal and other companions: Edward gets a dog, Camilla a literal horse [bringing the novel full circle]), Aldwilda a string of lovers, Alma gets Edward and Kristian decides (at least verbally) to head to Syria to join the conflict.
And by the fourth novel Camilla is marooned – as per the quote that opens my review - her beloved mother also dead, and separated from Charles. The title of this section is (I understand from Danish reviews) taken from Howard Pyle’s painting Marooned:
Overall, an impressive work full of literature and life. My one reservation is that, having originally been issued a 4 novellas over 6 years, read back to back it becomes rather intense.
Excerpts:
https://fitzcarraldoeditions.com/book...
https://granta.com/death-house/
Some very helpful reviews:
http://www.splitlipmagazine.com/917-r...
https://thebookbindersdaughter.com/20...
May 18, 2021
Are any of us looking forward to midlife? Those in the midst of it, have we found it to be entirely underrated, a hyperbole of negativity by those who’ve already lived it? I write this mini-revie w with my left hand, the right hand slung and unusable—useless actually. Ah, midlife.
Reading a 400 page novel focused on a group of friends wading through the muck of midlife did not appeal to me, but reading a new author absolutely did. Timing is everything. Books CAN find readers when they need them (algorithms really, but whatever).
I’ve digressed as terribly as ever.
This is a big book, not physically big, but emotionally big. Ms. Hasselholdt is dishing out the truth. No drama; no plot; no prose stylings; no sappy unbelievable last minute surprises. There is much conversation between friends and lovers, a great many philosophical musings, reminiscing, heartbreak and healing; also some tedium.
A 400 page book that ~feels~ like a 600 page book. It was released as four installments in Denmark over a period of years. That seems right: breaks in between parts were beneficial for readers who felt a sense of fatigue from its contents and digressions. Don’t scare off.
Companions is a wonderful read that never shies away from bitter truths or character defects, or the subtle pleasures that help our aging bodies and minds to cope with the unavoidable stresses that a long life entail.
Reading a 400 page novel focused on a group of friends wading through the muck of midlife did not appeal to me, but reading a new author absolutely did. Timing is everything. Books CAN find readers when they need them (algorithms really, but whatever).
I’ve digressed as terribly as ever.
This is a big book, not physically big, but emotionally big. Ms. Hasselholdt is dishing out the truth. No drama; no plot; no prose stylings; no sappy unbelievable last minute surprises. There is much conversation between friends and lovers, a great many philosophical musings, reminiscing, heartbreak and healing; also some tedium.
A 400 page book that ~feels~ like a 600 page book. It was released as four installments in Denmark over a period of years. That seems right: breaks in between parts were beneficial for readers who felt a sense of fatigue from its contents and digressions. Don’t scare off.
Companions is a wonderful read that never shies away from bitter truths or character defects, or the subtle pleasures that help our aging bodies and minds to cope with the unavoidable stresses that a long life entail.
June 28, 2023
Det tog mig över två månader att avsluta den här boken. Min läsning skedde bitvis, till en början i små små delar för att avslutas i ett större sjok. När jag senare fördjupade mig i bokens framtagande fick jag veta att det egentligen är fyra sammanslagna kortromaner och kanske var det så jag skulle läst den för att lättare ta mig fram. För det är inte helt enkel läsning (dessutom är min pocketversion illa satt med tighta marginaler och liten grad som får orden att välla ut över sidorna) men språket – språket! – det är ljuvligt. Sällskapet är en hyllning till vänskapen och litteraturen, de inre tankarna och de små detaljerna som präglat våra liv.
December 3, 2018
Ambivalent feelings about this one. There is nothing wrong with it really and some parts I really enjoyed, but I never felt myself truly invested in the stories of these companions. The author is clearly erudite (maybe to the point of annoyance – near-constant namedropping) and I do appreciate the effort taken to evoke a sense of The Waves, one of the greatest novels of all time. Hopefully I’ll have more positive thoughts regarding next year’s Vivian!
March 5, 2023
Tråkig. Man lär inte känna någon av karaktärerna och dramaturgin är otydlig/obefintlig
February 14, 2018
This is a truly fascinating book. I found parts of it brilliant and I laughed several times at the over-the-top eccentric characters and their weird anecdotes and puzzling trains of thought.
However, the book does not have a conventional plot (this is addressed by one of the book's main characters who in one scene condescendingly tells a museum attendant that in modern novels normally it does not happen that much) and to be honest, I barely made it through the whole book.
I was deeply frustrated by the characters' numerous and lengthy inner conversations about literature, authorship, Virginia Woolf and other authors. I suspect that to truly appreciate this book, you should be well-versed on modern literature in general and on Virginia Woolf in particular. If you are, and if you are not bothered by the lack of a conventional plot, you should definitely read it!
However, the book does not have a conventional plot (this is addressed by one of the book's main characters who in one scene condescendingly tells a museum attendant that in modern novels normally it does not happen that much) and to be honest, I barely made it through the whole book.
I was deeply frustrated by the characters' numerous and lengthy inner conversations about literature, authorship, Virginia Woolf and other authors. I suspect that to truly appreciate this book, you should be well-versed on modern literature in general and on Virginia Woolf in particular. If you are, and if you are not bothered by the lack of a conventional plot, you should definitely read it!
May 20, 2018
This book was just what I needed. So thoughtful and sad and smart and clever and in love with books. Rich friendships over time (particularly between Alma and Camilla)...comparisons to A Little Life (but less queer and horrific) and the Neapolitan Novels (but less of a soap opera). Packed a deeper punch for me.
February 20, 2018
Stream of consciousness och Virginia Woolf-ish. Särskilt förtjust i de delar där Alma följer i fotspåren av döda brittiska författare.
August 13, 2019
Denna samling av kortromaner (som därav saknar en ren handling hela boken igenom) tog ett tag att komma in i, efter knappt halva boken var jag redo att lägga den ifrån mig. Men runt 200 sidor in hände något - och jag var fast. Hade denna vändning skett tidigare hade betyget säkerligen varit högre.
Handlingen kretsar kring ett kompisgäng under olika perioder av deras liv, och det var framförallt skildringarna kring när de var unga och författarens framställning av föräldrar som jag fattade tycke för. Kärleken mellan barn-förälder och barn-annan vuxen var slående, jag satt med tårar i ögonen flera gånger. Desto mindre gripande är relationsskildringarna mellan man-kvinna, dessa tyckte jag till slut blev rätt ytliga och onödiga på vissa håll.
Skulle klassa detta som en riktig ”vuxen” bok, sättet den är skriven på är bitvis svår att hänga med i och dessutom svår att komma in i från början. Ett stort plus för att man får följa flera olika karaktärer istället för bara en, och som tidigare nämnt även för skildringarna av relationen mellan barn och förälder. Läsvärd - ja! Om jag kommer läsa den igen - nej.
Handlingen kretsar kring ett kompisgäng under olika perioder av deras liv, och det var framförallt skildringarna kring när de var unga och författarens framställning av föräldrar som jag fattade tycke för. Kärleken mellan barn-förälder och barn-annan vuxen var slående, jag satt med tårar i ögonen flera gånger. Desto mindre gripande är relationsskildringarna mellan man-kvinna, dessa tyckte jag till slut blev rätt ytliga och onödiga på vissa håll.
Skulle klassa detta som en riktig ”vuxen” bok, sättet den är skriven på är bitvis svår att hänga med i och dessutom svår att komma in i från början. Ett stort plus för att man får följa flera olika karaktärer istället för bara en, och som tidigare nämnt även för skildringarna av relationen mellan barn och förälder. Läsvärd - ja! Om jag kommer läsa den igen - nej.
January 19, 2020
Borde kunna identifiera mig med en karaktär som heter Camilla, är 46 och har ett "omättligt förhållande till litteratur" och jag är den första att omfamna idiosynkratisk prosa.
Det är bara det att detta selskab är lika absorberade av sig själva som Bloomsburygruppen. Återberättande av drömmar och återberättande av reseanekdoter, t.ex. tågluffarromanser, och kufisk hotellpersonal, uppskattar jag ej.
Däremot är all litteraturism ljuvlig läsning: hos Wordsworth i Lake District, Brontës Haworth, Monk's House förstås, eftersom allt är skrivet i Virginia Woolfs anda. Även huset i Devon, där Sylvia Plath levde en kortare tid, får besök. Gillade även att läsa om mammans arbete inom psykiatrin.
Avser läsa Hesselholdts bok (roman?!, spännande i så fall) om Vivian Maier inom kort.
Det är bara det att detta selskab är lika absorberade av sig själva som Bloomsburygruppen. Återberättande av drömmar och återberättande av reseanekdoter, t.ex. tågluffarromanser, och kufisk hotellpersonal, uppskattar jag ej.
Däremot är all litteraturism ljuvlig läsning: hos Wordsworth i Lake District, Brontës Haworth, Monk's House förstås, eftersom allt är skrivet i Virginia Woolfs anda. Även huset i Devon, där Sylvia Plath levde en kortare tid, får besök. Gillade även att läsa om mammans arbete inom psykiatrin.
Avser läsa Hesselholdts bok (roman?!, spännande i så fall) om Vivian Maier inom kort.
May 6, 2020
Jag har i alla fall lärt mig att det också finns tråkiga danska författare
April 25, 2024
Danmarks svar på De vilda detektiverna 😍!
April 2, 2019
Det är framförallt det fascinerande språket som ger den betyget!!
May 15, 2018
What a beautiful, meandering and literary stroll through contemporary adult friendships! The way this book honestly deals with loss, love and death is lovely. The way that literary and poetic moments are woven throughout the character's lives is lovely. If you enjoy Virginia Woolf, this one is for you. (Or if you enjoy Knausgaard. Or Donna Tartt's The Secret History.) Overall, I immensely enjoyed this book and can't wait to read more Hesselholdt!
April 26, 2019
I was rapt by the first section of the book, and then slowly started to hate the whole thing. There is an objective reason for this, which a superior reviewer has told me: this is really four novellas, not one novel, and I can imagine being much more enthralled by the whole thing had I read it over a period of eight years, instead of eight days.
There is also a subjective reason for this: reading the first section, it was clear that the book is identity political literature for rich white people, which is essentially what I am. I kept waiting for the book to develop some critical bite, but instead, it got softer and softer and nudged me to sympathise more and more with these horrible people (qui? c'est moi). It was a repulsive experience.
Having said that, I'd much rather read this than a single page of K Ove K, the last volume of whose Struggle is glaring at me from the half-read pile.
There is also a subjective reason for this: reading the first section, it was clear that the book is identity political literature for rich white people, which is essentially what I am. I kept waiting for the book to develop some critical bite, but instead, it got softer and softer and nudged me to sympathise more and more with these horrible people (qui? c'est moi). It was a repulsive experience.
Having said that, I'd much rather read this than a single page of K Ove K, the last volume of whose Struggle is glaring at me from the half-read pile.
Read
April 16, 2018"Danish novelist Christina Hesselholdt’s narrative explores different types of love—romantic, filial, platonic—and the existential angst that these emotions cause. Time and again the theme of death is considered in the author’s fragmented, intertextual, and postmodern writing." - Melissa Beck
This book was reviewed in the Mar/Apr 2018 issue of World Literature Today magazine. Read the full review by visiting our website:
https://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/...
This book was reviewed in the Mar/Apr 2018 issue of World Literature Today magazine. Read the full review by visiting our website:
https://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/...
January 24, 2025
a wonderful 21st century spin on 'the waves', which actually ended up engaging with some of my favourite twentieth century authors in a way that was refreshingly neither derivative nor gratuitous.
December 13, 2020
Slubr-slubr-slubr, det er lyden af mig, der læser Christina Hesselholdt. Der er ikke mange forfattere, jeg læser med samme intensitet og umættelighed, og jeg har svært ved at finde ud, hvad det præcis er, der gør Hesselholdt så god at smaske-sluge-glug-glug-læse. Der er jo ikke nogen handling at lade sig gribe af: Romancyklussen Selskabet består af forskellige vignetter fra en bekendtskabskreds' respektive liv – i første roman, Camilla and the horse, oven i købet næsten uden at enkeltpersonerne interagerer med hinanden.
Hvad er det så, der gør Christina Hesselholdts bøger til så letflydende (men ikke let) læsning? To ting: Et fuldstændigt finpudset sprog, der godt nok er sprælsk og viltert og postmoderne opmærksomt på sig selv, men på en fortælleglad og perfekt tilpasset måde. Og så en underliggende patos, en villighed til at lade karaktererne føle og så blive i dén følelse i 40 sider i træk. Det kan være melankolsk nostalgi, en overgearet lykke, en afdæmpet aldrende fortvivlelse eller en dyb, sort sorg, der altid iblandet en mild, underspillet humor og en uforlignelig sprogopmærksomhed risler blidt af sted som en bæk.
De liv, der i glimt udgør Selskabets handling, bevæger sig forbavsende hurtigt, eller det synes man måske bare, når man læser det, der oprindeligt blev udgivet hen over 6 år, i løbet af to fortættede weekender. I første bog er hovedpersonerne stadig unge eller i hvert fald ungdommelige, den pludselige og utilsigtede, buldrende forelskelse er de små 90 siders bærende følelse. Men også allerede her lugter der af en anden fremtid, alderens slag i ansigtet, for bogens stærkeste del (og måske simpelthen det bedste i hele cyklussen) er den, der følger Edward i året efter hans forældre har begået kollektivt selvmord. – Hvilket, når man siger det, lyder meget mere melodramatisk, end det er. Hesselholdt skriver om de store følelser, men af en eller anden uforklarlig grund er det aldrig patetisk eller sentimentalt.
Snart efter er det ikke kun Edward, der brat og brutalt rives ud af ungdommen, for allerede i næste bog er forelskelsens begejstrede skubben til taget veget for de fire vægges trykkende indeklemmen: Forholdene går i stykker, personerne og deres forældre bliver syge, livet mister indhold. Men samtidig fortsat en legende lethed, måske simpelthen bare en sproglig lethed: Det gode sprogs uundgåelige humorglimt.
Det er hverken politisk litteratur eller som sådan samtidslitteratur, Christina Hesselholdt skriver, det er litterær litteratur og menneskelitteratur med Virginia Woolf som forbillede og en stemning og velskrevenhed som Marguerite Duras' Elskeren. Jeg gider egentlig ikke beskrive det nærmere, smut nu bare ned i den lænestol, og læs det selv.
https://endnuenbogblog.blogspot.com/
Hvad er det så, der gør Christina Hesselholdts bøger til så letflydende (men ikke let) læsning? To ting: Et fuldstændigt finpudset sprog, der godt nok er sprælsk og viltert og postmoderne opmærksomt på sig selv, men på en fortælleglad og perfekt tilpasset måde. Og så en underliggende patos, en villighed til at lade karaktererne føle og så blive i dén følelse i 40 sider i træk. Det kan være melankolsk nostalgi, en overgearet lykke, en afdæmpet aldrende fortvivlelse eller en dyb, sort sorg, der altid iblandet en mild, underspillet humor og en uforlignelig sprogopmærksomhed risler blidt af sted som en bæk.
De liv, der i glimt udgør Selskabets handling, bevæger sig forbavsende hurtigt, eller det synes man måske bare, når man læser det, der oprindeligt blev udgivet hen over 6 år, i løbet af to fortættede weekender. I første bog er hovedpersonerne stadig unge eller i hvert fald ungdommelige, den pludselige og utilsigtede, buldrende forelskelse er de små 90 siders bærende følelse. Men også allerede her lugter der af en anden fremtid, alderens slag i ansigtet, for bogens stærkeste del (og måske simpelthen det bedste i hele cyklussen) er den, der følger Edward i året efter hans forældre har begået kollektivt selvmord. – Hvilket, når man siger det, lyder meget mere melodramatisk, end det er. Hesselholdt skriver om de store følelser, men af en eller anden uforklarlig grund er det aldrig patetisk eller sentimentalt.
Snart efter er det ikke kun Edward, der brat og brutalt rives ud af ungdommen, for allerede i næste bog er forelskelsens begejstrede skubben til taget veget for de fire vægges trykkende indeklemmen: Forholdene går i stykker, personerne og deres forældre bliver syge, livet mister indhold. Men samtidig fortsat en legende lethed, måske simpelthen bare en sproglig lethed: Det gode sprogs uundgåelige humorglimt.
Det er hverken politisk litteratur eller som sådan samtidslitteratur, Christina Hesselholdt skriver, det er litterær litteratur og menneskelitteratur med Virginia Woolf som forbillede og en stemning og velskrevenhed som Marguerite Duras' Elskeren. Jeg gider egentlig ikke beskrive det nærmere, smut nu bare ned i den lænestol, og læs det selv.
https://endnuenbogblog.blogspot.com/
Read
April 12, 2022This book spends most of its time, it seems, talking to itself instead of its reader. At least that's how I felt reading it. Non-linear, nontraditional plots can be hard to engage with.
Notes
He is full of contempt. He is plagued by loathing. He lacks kindness. He has no sense of humor. (And his flaws go beyond these.)
The thought of growing old with him is chilling. How is he going to look at me when I'm 55 or 85 and I am dragging my feet around, not out of fatigue or because I'm in a bad mood like now, but quite simply because I am no longer capable of lifting them…
Nonetheless sometimes when he gets into his stride I get the sense that we were not on the same holiday; or living the same existence; enduring the same punishment. We, the anemic shadows who drain each other’s lives of happiness. I long for a different life; for kindness and generous body. I get the feeling that I am drying up at the age of 35. And I find myself in a kind of slumber. I cannot act… every night I have to look away when he choose his dinner to death. It's his tense jaw, I cannot stand how he turns his beautiful mouth into a waste disposal unit.
(PG. 21-22)
The corks fly, and the anticipation of the intoxication is like standing at a great height and looking across a kingdom. (PG. 94)
I close my eyes and dream about a man I saw in a park. I am alone and searching for someone so I can send my thoughts in their direction. What am I going to do with my longing? Where am I going to send my notions? What am I going to do with myself? I take up too much space, I am overflowing. (PG. 129)
All the things I could not take with me when I left; things that could not be taken back. And things I would prefer he not preside over. My life story, for example. Intimate confessions. Embarrassing incidents. My idiosyncrasies. My pettiness. All the things he knows ad nauseam; but things which, when we were together, could be smoothed over and placed along side my more excellent and redeeming qualities.
Is it how he will remember me that concerns me?
I would like to be gone completely, to be able to remove all traces. I am not prepared for him to be wheeling and dealing with ‘me’ when I am not there, where he can add and subtract. (PG. 132)
They (the women) demand, they command… They attempt to shape me, and they are so angry at the men because of their negligence that they (the men) only remain visible as objects for these enormous waves of anger, weaklings foundering on anger’s beach. Maybe my dad will only become visible in his own right when my mom dies. (PG. 251)
Alma writes everything down. I am being recorded. Camilla’s mum once said that when she was young and wrote poems, she got a sense that she only looked at things in order to be able to write about them; and she did not like that. (PG. 388)
Notes
He is full of contempt. He is plagued by loathing. He lacks kindness. He has no sense of humor. (And his flaws go beyond these.)
The thought of growing old with him is chilling. How is he going to look at me when I'm 55 or 85 and I am dragging my feet around, not out of fatigue or because I'm in a bad mood like now, but quite simply because I am no longer capable of lifting them…
Nonetheless sometimes when he gets into his stride I get the sense that we were not on the same holiday; or living the same existence; enduring the same punishment. We, the anemic shadows who drain each other’s lives of happiness. I long for a different life; for kindness and generous body. I get the feeling that I am drying up at the age of 35. And I find myself in a kind of slumber. I cannot act… every night I have to look away when he choose his dinner to death. It's his tense jaw, I cannot stand how he turns his beautiful mouth into a waste disposal unit.
(PG. 21-22)
The corks fly, and the anticipation of the intoxication is like standing at a great height and looking across a kingdom. (PG. 94)
I close my eyes and dream about a man I saw in a park. I am alone and searching for someone so I can send my thoughts in their direction. What am I going to do with my longing? Where am I going to send my notions? What am I going to do with myself? I take up too much space, I am overflowing. (PG. 129)
All the things I could not take with me when I left; things that could not be taken back. And things I would prefer he not preside over. My life story, for example. Intimate confessions. Embarrassing incidents. My idiosyncrasies. My pettiness. All the things he knows ad nauseam; but things which, when we were together, could be smoothed over and placed along side my more excellent and redeeming qualities.
Is it how he will remember me that concerns me?
I would like to be gone completely, to be able to remove all traces. I am not prepared for him to be wheeling and dealing with ‘me’ when I am not there, where he can add and subtract. (PG. 132)
They (the women) demand, they command… They attempt to shape me, and they are so angry at the men because of their negligence that they (the men) only remain visible as objects for these enormous waves of anger, weaklings foundering on anger’s beach. Maybe my dad will only become visible in his own right when my mom dies. (PG. 251)
Alma writes everything down. I am being recorded. Camilla’s mum once said that when she was young and wrote poems, she got a sense that she only looked at things in order to be able to write about them; and she did not like that. (PG. 388)
March 21, 2019
Jag läste ett gammalt nummer av Vi läser, där ett gäng bok-hängivna personer av olika sort fick uttala sig om 2017 års böcker. Den här dök upp alldeles för ofta under "bästa läsupplevelse" för att inte klickas hem från bibblan.
I början förstår jag vad bok-folket menar. Jag sitter och fånler sådär så att folk som ser mig säkert gissar att jag tittar på "söta katter"-videos, snarare än läser en dansk samtidsroman. Hesselholdt får till formuleringar och finurligheter som ingen katt skulle ha kunnat slå. Men sen... händer inget mer. Lite som med videoklippen; det blir liksom inte mer än gulligt. Och man tröttnar.
Eller förlåt; JAG tröttnar. Jag bryr mig inte ett skvatt om vad Camilla eller hennes vänner gör, och Camilla (och hennes vänner) fortsätter mala på om vad de gör - eller kanske tänker, eller tror, eller känner? - det är lite oklart faktiskt. Det kan spela in att jag och min man hamnade framför en nyproducerad Netflix-serie för ett tag sedan, som vi snabbt bytte ut mot en 90-tals b-rulle, på grundval av att DET INTE FINNS NÅGON STORY! Idag verkar det räcka med att...vara. Eller prata om att man är - gärna rakt in i kameran/rakt genom texten. Utan att något faktiskt... händer. Och det KAN funka - riktigt så traditionell (eller gammal?) är jag inte - jag kan också tycka saker kan vara bra bara genom att vara - bra. Men någon känsla måste ändå väckas, och Hesselholdt griper mig aldrig; jag lär aldrig känna hennes karaktärer. Eller så är det det jag gör; jag lär känna dem i den helhet de tillåter sig själva att presentera sig i - och finner dem ytliga. Ganska osympatiska. Vissa rent av patetiska. Fast inte nog för att väcka antipati - vilket ju i alla fall hade varit en känsla.
Nej, för mig var det här inte 2017 års läsupplevelse - och inte heller 2019:s.
(Med viss reservation: författaren bjuder på en hel hög med andra författare och texter invävt i sin egen bok - och DET uppskattar jag enormt. Om inte annat för allmänbildningens skull!)
P.s. Ni vet hur jag brukar gnälla på översatta böcker? Det här är den andra boken i år jag läser där översättningen fungerar alldeles förträffligt! Så, jag tar tillbaka vad jag sagt om att man måste läsa orginalspråk om man kan; danskan är tydligen närmare svenskan än jag trott, för både Klougart och Hesselholdt går att läsa på mitt modersmål.
I början förstår jag vad bok-folket menar. Jag sitter och fånler sådär så att folk som ser mig säkert gissar att jag tittar på "söta katter"-videos, snarare än läser en dansk samtidsroman. Hesselholdt får till formuleringar och finurligheter som ingen katt skulle ha kunnat slå. Men sen... händer inget mer. Lite som med videoklippen; det blir liksom inte mer än gulligt. Och man tröttnar.
Eller förlåt; JAG tröttnar. Jag bryr mig inte ett skvatt om vad Camilla eller hennes vänner gör, och Camilla (och hennes vänner) fortsätter mala på om vad de gör - eller kanske tänker, eller tror, eller känner? - det är lite oklart faktiskt. Det kan spela in att jag och min man hamnade framför en nyproducerad Netflix-serie för ett tag sedan, som vi snabbt bytte ut mot en 90-tals b-rulle, på grundval av att DET INTE FINNS NÅGON STORY! Idag verkar det räcka med att...vara. Eller prata om att man är - gärna rakt in i kameran/rakt genom texten. Utan att något faktiskt... händer. Och det KAN funka - riktigt så traditionell (eller gammal?) är jag inte - jag kan också tycka saker kan vara bra bara genom att vara - bra. Men någon känsla måste ändå väckas, och Hesselholdt griper mig aldrig; jag lär aldrig känna hennes karaktärer. Eller så är det det jag gör; jag lär känna dem i den helhet de tillåter sig själva att presentera sig i - och finner dem ytliga. Ganska osympatiska. Vissa rent av patetiska. Fast inte nog för att väcka antipati - vilket ju i alla fall hade varit en känsla.
Nej, för mig var det här inte 2017 års läsupplevelse - och inte heller 2019:s.
(Med viss reservation: författaren bjuder på en hel hög med andra författare och texter invävt i sin egen bok - och DET uppskattar jag enormt. Om inte annat för allmänbildningens skull!)
P.s. Ni vet hur jag brukar gnälla på översatta böcker? Det här är den andra boken i år jag läser där översättningen fungerar alldeles förträffligt! Så, jag tar tillbaka vad jag sagt om att man måste läsa orginalspråk om man kan; danskan är tydligen närmare svenskan än jag trott, för både Klougart och Hesselholdt går att läsa på mitt modersmål.
December 25, 2023
Das Buch Gefährten hat ein dunkles, für mich eher nachdenkliches Cover. Es ist ein passendes Cover und hat meine Lust auf das Buch geweckt.
Erzählt wird die Geschichte von sechs Freunden. Hierbei wird auf eine Art innerer Monolog gesetzt, sodass ich theoretisch jede Figur begleite und kennenlerne. Und genau hier fing schon das erste Problem an. Ich lerne die Figuren kennen, kann jedoch kaum eine Bindung aufbauen, da der Wechsel für mich einfach zu schnell ist. Nichts gegen Tempo in Büchern, aber gerade bei solch einem Thema, den Entwicklungen von sechs Personen, möchte ich Zeit mit den Figuren verbringen. Dazu kommt, dass es durch den ständigen Wechsel auch ein ständiges hin und her der Emotionen ist. Von komisch geht es plötzlich unter die Gürtellinie. Danach folgt ein leicht depressives Intermezzo, gefolgt von derben Momenten. Am Ende blieben mir die Personen tatsächlich fremd. Fremd ist jetzt vielleicht das falsche Wort. Ich habe nämlich ein Bild und könnte die Figur natürlich beschreiben, aber sie sind mir nie nahe gekommen, haben mich nicht berührt und sind mir allesamt unsympathisch. Figuren, wo ich nicht traurig war, sie nicht wiederzusehen.
Dabei sind die Charaktere und ihre Geschichten authentisch. Alltägliche Probleme. Fast so, als hätte die Autorin ihre eigenen Probleme eingebunden. Nur unter uns. Alltag hat jeder, und in Büchern möchte ich diesen vergessen. Auch das ist vielleicht unglücklich formuliert. Bücher greifen schließlich den Alltag auf, aber lassen träumen und hoffen oder spannende Momente erleben. Hier war es nur Alltag, dem leider ein roter Faden fehlte. Schnell erzählte Probleme von sechs Personen. Facettenreich, aber leider nicht überzeugend.
Erzählt wird die Geschichte von sechs Freunden. Hierbei wird auf eine Art innerer Monolog gesetzt, sodass ich theoretisch jede Figur begleite und kennenlerne. Und genau hier fing schon das erste Problem an. Ich lerne die Figuren kennen, kann jedoch kaum eine Bindung aufbauen, da der Wechsel für mich einfach zu schnell ist. Nichts gegen Tempo in Büchern, aber gerade bei solch einem Thema, den Entwicklungen von sechs Personen, möchte ich Zeit mit den Figuren verbringen. Dazu kommt, dass es durch den ständigen Wechsel auch ein ständiges hin und her der Emotionen ist. Von komisch geht es plötzlich unter die Gürtellinie. Danach folgt ein leicht depressives Intermezzo, gefolgt von derben Momenten. Am Ende blieben mir die Personen tatsächlich fremd. Fremd ist jetzt vielleicht das falsche Wort. Ich habe nämlich ein Bild und könnte die Figur natürlich beschreiben, aber sie sind mir nie nahe gekommen, haben mich nicht berührt und sind mir allesamt unsympathisch. Figuren, wo ich nicht traurig war, sie nicht wiederzusehen.
Dabei sind die Charaktere und ihre Geschichten authentisch. Alltägliche Probleme. Fast so, als hätte die Autorin ihre eigenen Probleme eingebunden. Nur unter uns. Alltag hat jeder, und in Büchern möchte ich diesen vergessen. Auch das ist vielleicht unglücklich formuliert. Bücher greifen schließlich den Alltag auf, aber lassen träumen und hoffen oder spannende Momente erleben. Hier war es nur Alltag, dem leider ein roter Faden fehlte. Schnell erzählte Probleme von sechs Personen. Facettenreich, aber leider nicht überzeugend.
June 25, 2024
Found this quite hard work but also loved it - it has, as you can see, taken me a while. An ongoing swirl of interpersonal relationships continually reconfiguring, which is of course the exact kind of thing I like, here with a healthy dose of grief, desire, ageing, some light 21st century politics and some heavy 20th century literary criticism.
Gets a little stodgy in the middle but ends very, very strong. I think I like the group conversation sequences most of all where every character is always talking at odds with each other, every sentence refracting off the past one at an odd angle, neither clear response nor total non-sequitur.
Sorry for being British (no, really) but it does seem wild that a couple being named Charles and Camilla is never commented on, still not sure if that was a bit.
All that and you come away with a lengthy reading list.
Gets a little stodgy in the middle but ends very, very strong. I think I like the group conversation sequences most of all where every character is always talking at odds with each other, every sentence refracting off the past one at an odd angle, neither clear response nor total non-sequitur.
Sorry for being British (no, really) but it does seem wild that a couple being named Charles and Camilla is never commented on, still not sure if that was a bit.
All that and you come away with a lengthy reading list.
September 19, 2020
Though not nearly as lush and lulling, an interesting contemporary take on Virginia Woolf's "The Waves" through the eyes of 6 well-to-do Danes arriving at middle age. The prose is fairly inconsistent – at times I was riveted to the page, pacing while I read as it was so full of momentum. But at other times, and particularly later in the novel, it felt like reading a google translation, with really rough punctuation and odd turns of phrase that didn't quite pay off. Hard to know if it's just a poor translation of a great book... But this is the format of the prose, as each chapter is written from the perspective of one of the 6 friends, so maybe this dizziness is intentional. Still, I would recommend others in the Fitzcarraldo series before this one. Better yet, read "The Waves".
March 17, 2023
I don't have time to write the long review I'd like to because I'm too involved in writing my novel
and short stories. So here's brief yet full on praise. This is a beautifully written and translated literary book that straddles story and stream of consciousness. (I'm thrilled at the moment to be reading two brilliant books: this one and Steinbeck's East of Eden. Obviously they're quite different.) The book is set up as a series of monologues, almost like short stories, of varying length and voice. What makes it great is that the writing spins very quickly into memory and dream world (read Steinbeck's journal he kept while writing EoE and you'll see he speaks of this too.) I can't wait to reading more of Hesselholdt's work.
and short stories. So here's brief yet full on praise. This is a beautifully written and translated literary book that straddles story and stream of consciousness. (I'm thrilled at the moment to be reading two brilliant books: this one and Steinbeck's East of Eden. Obviously they're quite different.) The book is set up as a series of monologues, almost like short stories, of varying length and voice. What makes it great is that the writing spins very quickly into memory and dream world (read Steinbeck's journal he kept while writing EoE and you'll see he speaks of this too.) I can't wait to reading more of Hesselholdt's work.
February 19, 2019
Camilla, Charles, Alma, Edward, Alwilda and Kristian are a circle of friends hurtling through mid-life.
Sounded very promising, but there is no real plot of the story. I found it very boring, as I expected much more from this Danish author. It's probably a lot to do with translation which is very confusing.
Couldn't engadged with any of the caracthers. Left the book couple of times not even wanted to finish it. Finaly managed but it was hard work.
Sounded very promising, but there is no real plot of the story. I found it very boring, as I expected much more from this Danish author. It's probably a lot to do with translation which is very confusing.
Couldn't engadged with any of the caracthers. Left the book couple of times not even wanted to finish it. Finaly managed but it was hard work.
October 11, 2025
At its best, like The Waves but with humour. Unfortunately the whole thing is a bit uneven, and it's hard to keep the motivation to follow some of the characters and story.
Apparently, it may have originally been four novellas that have been combined together. I think that might be more palatable, and I may read it with that in mind (rather than pushing through the whole thing in one) in a future re-read
Apparently, it may have originally been four novellas that have been combined together. I think that might be more palatable, and I may read it with that in mind (rather than pushing through the whole thing in one) in a future re-read
November 8, 2017
Jag läste ut Sällskapet för några dagar sedan, och nu har vi pratat om den i min bokcirkel, men jag är nog inte riktigt färdig med att processa denna bok. Det händer inte så mycket i boken egentligen, men samtidigt händer allt. Livet.
Jag slits mellan att vara fascinerad av associationsbanorna hos karaktärerna, och av att var lite irriterad på den här formen av berättande.
Jag slits mellan att vara fascinerad av associationsbanorna hos karaktärerna, och av att var lite irriterad på den här formen av berättande.
July 29, 2018
I was really disappointed with this book. Stream of consciousness/ monologue style aside, the constant use of brackets and extremely lengthy sentences meant it was hard to keep track of the characters’ thoughts and what was happening. I felt like a 5 year old; reading words but with no comprehension of what was going on.
December 21, 2020
Okay - it has its moments
I enjoyed some parts of this novel and liked it best when the writing reminded me of Joan Didion but ultimately I felt like I had sat down to lunch with an old friend who insisted on talking of people of whom i didn’t know and I found little interest in.
I enjoyed some parts of this novel and liked it best when the writing reminded me of Joan Didion but ultimately I felt like I had sat down to lunch with an old friend who insisted on talking of people of whom i didn’t know and I found little interest in.
February 2, 2022
Jag klarade det! Ja, boken är på vissa sätt väldigt originell, men jag har svårt att uppskatta det när den samtidigt är så pretentiös. Skulle vilja ge den 2,5 stjärnor, men det får bli 2,4 så att jag kan avrunda nedåt. Slutsatsen blir att den hemliga tomten som valde denna bok till mig tror alldeles för högt om mina litterära preferenser.
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