Torborg Nedreaas (1906–1987)

The book's title is suggestive of the half life the narrator lives, bound by an obsessional love to an older man utterly unworthy of her devotion, & trapped by the hypocritical mores of patriarchal religious values.

80 years since publication, Nedreaas's exploration of "pro-life" misogynistic shaming of pregnancy & abortion that also punishes unmarried mothers and stigmatises and willfully neglects their children is, sadly, still relevant.

There are also themes of depression and mental show more illness, class struggle, capitalism, infidelity, and suicide, and some graphic descriptions of self-induced abortion, all couched in a brittly beautiful prose.

The narrative structure of compulsive reminiscence lends a dark foreboding to both the past and present circumstances of the narrator's life: Nedreaas is honest and doesn't play any cheap tricks on the reader. A plangently melancholy 4.5⭐ show less

This stark, psychologically intense novel centers on a single, devastating experience in a young woman’s life and examines how that collides with her judgment and society’s ostracism. The novel is impactful more for its emotional atmosphere than for its narrative breadth or resolution. The action—such as it is—takes place over one interminable night when she confesses to an unnamed male narrator who picked her up in a Norwegian train station.

The story this woman tells this man show more touches on multiple feminist themes, including sexual vulnerability, gender hypocrisy, class constraint, and the burdens women bear with respect to their bodies and choices. Nedreaas’ title itself signals her belief that such elements stunt women’s moral, emotional and social growth.

The mood is unrelentingly bleak and claustrophobic. Repeated narrative breaks highlight the male companion’s observations and serve to remind the reader that this is a confession taking place in a hotel room in the middle of the night. Nedreaas adopts an unforgiving and sober tone characterized by understatement and careful observation. The narrative’s unrelenting severity can make for demanding reading along with a repetitive feel.

Nedreaas is less interested in plot development than in forcing the reader (and the male companion) to witness the psychological aftermath of this young woman’s trauma and its social consequences. Character development is narrowly focused on the young woman. Nedreaas renders her with psychological precision. We experience her inner life and how it is shaped by fear, resilience and a slowly dawning understanding of her disadvantaged place in society. The secondary characters seem to function more as representatives of societal indifference than fully realized people.

This austere novel carries a powerful message. Yet its persistent bleakness makes for a less than satisfying reading experience. show less

An overwhelmingly vivid exploration of a young mind. Nedreeas dive into well-known themes in this novel; through a nuanced depiction of the "innocent" childhood, with the boundless irrationality and lively imagination it engender, she deals with universal themes such as acceptance and growth. The protagonist, Herdis, is a colourful being, and we get a great insight into both her physical and mental state. The novel radiate a distinct freshness and vitality when it focus exclusively on show more Herdis' mental universe, giving the reader a clear - but at the same time enigmatical - sense of her (often ambiguous) actions and thoughts. Heartfelt and sensitive. show less

This is a short but unrelentingly bleak book. I have to say that it was a bit hard to take and took much longer than would be expected to read it. However, this may be because I was reading it alongside some other depressing books. The framing narrative is annoying and sometimes the translation is awkward. The story has the potential to be didactic – possibly too blatantly feminist in the story of a woman who has a relationship with a former teacher and is shunned and scorned while he show more marries another woman and retains his respectable standing. However, none of the characters are all good or bad and every option leads to some sort of misery. Other social issues are broached but there are no solutions. Well, maybe suicide.

The narrator meets a woman on the street and she tells him her story. This device really did seem unnecessary especially as there are frequent interruptions. The woman describes her unhappy and poor family – her drunken but occasionally loving father, her bitter and self-sacrificing mother and her sister, who convinces the father of her child to marry her with unhappy results. The narrator has an affair with Johannes, her former teacher, which at first is wildly happy but soon turns sour. She’s always going back to him though and thinks occasional bursts of affection or interest mean he wants an actual relationship. They are on and off for the whole book but she has to endure the gossip and judgment of the townspeople as well as the grinding poverty while he is much better off. Still, Johannes’ marriage is also conflicted. At times, the narrator addresses abortion (another means to make women disposable in her view), labor issues (strikes lead to nothing but misery) and conventional morality (just more hypocrisy). She meets a kindred spirit in the church organ player but he also has a checkered past. Otherwise, all her relationships are horribly unhappy. There’s enough in here to make it worth reading but it’s quite unpleasant. show less