It feels like a mistake to have read up about Vigdis Hjorth upon completing her novel, because in truth the book is far more interesting than the minor scandal which accompanied its publication. The novel is a tale about incest, a curiously Scandinavian theme. The narrator, Bergljot, makes several references to the film Festen, which the novel resembles. A wronged child confronting not just the parent who wronged them but also the familial structure which permits the offender to get away with their crime. In this sense the novel is about more than just incest. It’s about how families create their own myths, their own distortions of the truth, and the power struggles that go with the structure of the family itself. At one point Bergljot says that Festen got it wrong, because the victim is never given the chance in reality to confront their accuser as happens in the film. And the writing is brilliant in the minute way it examines all the ins and outs of Bergljot’s inhibition and the courage she requires in order that she can bring herself to confront her childhood demons, no matter how futile the task of changing the received family history should prove to be. The novel, which also refernces Ibsen, Jelineck and other Nordic poets, manages the trick of being both a difficult read and eminently readable, split up as it is into short sharp sections that keep the narrative moving in spite of Bergljot’s tendency to go round in circles as the prose nags away at a wound which can never heal.
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