Family Drama
20th Century
Sweden
20th Century
Sweden
"Hidden in the forest of Sweden, a country
church gleams in the sun. The First World War rages on the continent. Anna, in
the front pew, refuses to accept the age-old beliefs the village hands her.
Sixty years later, she gives refuge to a young niece, whose marriage is falling
apart. Fredrik, Anna's lover, is long since dead. She still blames him for the
death of their child, yet she misses his scent that would linger on her skin,
like the moon that shone on the snow and colored it blue. Every day she visits
the child’s grave, an old woman in a beret and tweed jacket. Time after time
her thoughts return to the past, when she had to go on living, even though all
seemed lost."
Within just a
few short pages, I was drawn fully into this world. Birgitta Hjalmarson writes
evocatively of what to me is a foreign land: Sweden. I settled back, immersed
in rich detail of unfamiliar landscapes, and a world where life was very
different. I said to myself, 'This is a proper story'. Rich description, focus
on tiny details, and pithy summations of the characters make it hard for the
reader to believe that this is not actually a memoir, so totally does the
author inhabit the world of which she writes. The switching from past to
present to more recent past is done skilfully and at no time was I confused
about where we were on the timeline.
In the Swedish
village of Hamm, they do things very differently and Anna, always one to think
and question, begins to challenge these 'old' ways. I had to break off from
reading this book when I was about fifty pages in, and the characters and
setting 'stayed' with me until I could pick the book up again.
By now, there
were hints of the tragedy that was to unfold. And I ran into a bit of a
problem. I was on the lookout. What did Fredrik do which was so terrible? Was
the dead woman something to do with him? We are led to believe so. And this is
where the rich detail and the huge cast of characters began to get a bit
'sickly'. I'd gorged on the sumptuous descriptive detail and now I wanted the
story to settle down, yet still the camera was set to macro, showing everything
in close up, and more and more people were introduced. I couldn't ignore any of
them, because I kept feeling that somewhere among them lay the clues to the
tragic events which the reader knows will happen. The presaging of doom was
distracting. When the truth is finally revealed, it was not what I'd been
expecting. No spoilers here, but I'd have preferred to have had less
signposting early on. That way I could have read and enjoyed the book, noting
all the description, getting to know the vast array of characters and still
have been surprised by the denouement.
That said, I
would re-read this book. Knowing how things turn out would not spoil a second
reading, and I'd go back and reacquaint myself with all the people from Hamm,
and beyond, who populate this story. If you want a book which will take you to
another time and place, this is one I'd recommend.
© Annie
Whitehead
(The version reviewed was a mobi file and
there was a slight formatting issue when
some personal letters were indented, and two typos may have been
mistranslations: ‘stories’ instead of ‘storeys’ and ‘peaked’ instead of ‘piqued’.)
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Thank you so much for reviewing Fylgia! It's wonderful to know the book is out there and has taken on a life of its own.
ReplyDeleteLovely review Annie, this one sounds like a beautiful read.
ReplyDelete