Reading: Love/War
Nov. 5th, 2017 06:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
white_hartThe book I went to the launch party for on Friday was Love/War (original title Århundradets kärlekskrig) by the Swedish feminist and Professor of Nordic Literature at the University of Helsinki Ebba Witt-Brattström. It takes the form of a dialogue between an unnamed couple whose 30-year marriage is unravelling, messily and bitterly, fragments of conversations as they fight and attack one another with words, almost reconcile and then pull apart again. It's sharp and witty and vitriolic, peppered with literary and musical references, and written as fragments of free verse. The characters emerge clearly even though we only see them through their words; she is a feminist academic, made bitter by emotional neglect and physical abuse, he is both condescending and needy. Unnamed, their arguments have a universality that might be lost if they were given names; everywoman versus everyman*.
I really enjoyed this; it's beautifully written (and beautifully translated**), thoughtful and thought-provoking but also very funny in places. I'm very glad that Nordisk Books decided to produce an English translation and will be keeping an eye on their future output.
*Well, not exactly everywoman and everyman; happily I don't recognise my own marriage in their arguments, though I see resonances of many conversations about relationships I've had with many friends over the years.
**for which I am very grateful, given that I only know one phrase in Swedish, and that is the Swedish for "Has anyone seen my moose?". Oddly enough, that doesn't appear to have figured in this book.
I really enjoyed this; it's beautifully written (and beautifully translated**), thoughtful and thought-provoking but also very funny in places. I'm very glad that Nordisk Books decided to produce an English translation and will be keeping an eye on their future output.
*Well, not exactly everywoman and everyman; happily I don't recognise my own marriage in their arguments, though I see resonances of many conversations about relationships I've had with many friends over the years.
**for which I am very grateful, given that I only know one phrase in Swedish, and that is the Swedish for "Has anyone seen my moose?". Oddly enough, that doesn't appear to have figured in this book.
