Pia Juul (1962–2020)

Actually, there’s a great deal I haven’t mentioned. How could I possibly include everything? Nonetheless, there is something I haven’t mentioned which I must have left out on purpose. That’s the difference. Or perhaps there isn’t any difference. Perhaps I leave out the things I’m not aware of leaving out on purpose.

What a clever, enigmatic, and downright brilliant book. With deceptive simplicity, Juul turns the murder mystery genre on its head—and then some. Her prose is very show more lucid, often with staccato rhythms that reminded me often of another Scandinavian author: the great Tove Jansson. Like Jansson, Juul is a brilliant wordsmith, fashioning texture more so than narrative or flow.

Although The Murder of Halland begins with a murder—and a rather Kafkaesque scene of public proclamation of guilt thrown on to the narrator, his common-law wife, Bess—those who read this novel to find out the whos, the whats, the wheres, the whys, and the hows will be gravely disappointed. (I hesitate to even add this title to my crime/mystery shelf here.) Instead, as I said above, Juul allows the initial murder to be the impetus for what flows forth, privileging texture over anything else.

Complete with a cast of bizarre characters, and with a humor so typically Scandinavian in its dark, sardonic way, this novel slowly builds to a consideration of how well we know others (“I knew everything about Halland. He was the love of my life. Did I hate him?”), and also how well we can know ourselves in a world that makes no sense whatsoever. An example of the strange juxtapositions that take place here that make this such a phenomenal work due to how it bends across genres so seamlessly: Bess picks up a notebook to write the usual whodunit suspect list, with motives and clues pointing to them. Immediately, however, she turns the page over and begins to write a to-do list so as not to forget to go grocery shopping or to clean her house. Juul is able to place similar types of discordant juxtapositions in both stream-of-consciousness as well as more dialogic passages, so the mood—which is hard to pinpoint or signify, existing both at the level of pathos and humor, grief and giddiness—stays wonderfully fluid throughout.

Epigraphs begin each chapter and indicate both Juul’s authorial debt as well as her thematic similarity to figures as wide ranging as Christa Wolf, Robert Walser, Raymond Chandler, Agatha Christie, Anne Carson, and Eugène Ionesco. At the same time, though, her prose is so cinematic in its registers that one can’t help but think of the surreal work of directors like David Lynch, where the uncanny side of everyday life is brought to the forefront and dreams and reality are indeterminable from one another. (Although I personally think the cinematic register in The Murder of Halland owes more to feminist surreal filmmakers like Lucrecia Martel whose work also came to mind while I was reading Juul’s novel.)

A remarkable and wholly original work: here’s to assembling a team of talented translators eager to begin translating more of Juul’s work into English soon so that we can enjoy the insights and the bewildering logic upholding the world as she presents it to us—and as it quite often is in reality as well. show less

Like all good Scandi design, this Danish crime novella's strength is in it's simple yet unconventional lines.

Bess is a writer, and we very quickly find out that her long-term partner Halland has been shot dead in the square outside their home. What transpires is less about the 'whodunnit' and more about Bess' unconventional reaction to his death. She's a difficult character to get the measure of, and her unpredictability plus the mystery of Halland's death nicely builds the dramatic tension show more in this crisp, spare piece of work.

This was the first Peirene published work I've read, and I found the ethos of the publishing house interesting: "Contemporary European Literature. Thought provoking, well designed, short." Described by the TLS as "Two-hour books to be devoured in a single sitting: literary cinema for those fatigued by film", this hits the nail on the head perfectly.

4 stars - an intriguing, literary crime noir. show less

At one point in this book, Bess, the narrator, criticizes TV murder mysteries - with their neat solutions and tidy plots, they do not reflect real life. Presumably, Bess would give her creator 5 stars as this is a crime novel(la) which raises more questions than it gets to answer. Juul is primarily interested in showing us the impact of Halland's death on the people around him, particularly Bess (his wife/partner - she's not even sure how she should describe herself). The underlying theme is show more that the greatest mysteries are not the trivial matters such as "who killed whom", but rather the secrets which we tend to keep from our loved ones.

Told with a wry humour which works surprising well in (Martin Aitken's) translation, and punctuated with various literary quotes which provide an oblique counterpoint to the plot, this is a novel which, at its end, will leave you unsure whether to applaud it or throw the book against the wall (though this wasn't much of an option in my case since I was reading it on my tablet...) show less

At one point in this book, Bess, the narrator, criticizes TV murder mysteries - with their neat solutions and tidy plots, they do not reflect real life. Presumably, Bess would give her creator 5 stars as this is a crime novel(la) which raises more questions than it gets to answer. Juul is primarily interested in showing us the impact of Halland's death on the people around him, particularly Bess (his wife/partner - she's not even sure how she should describe herself). The underlying theme is show more that the greatest mysteries are not the trivial matters such as "who killed whom", but rather the secrets which we tend to keep from our loved ones.

Told with a wry humour which works surprising well in (Martin Aitken's) translation, and punctuated with various literary quotes which provide an oblique counterpoint to the plot, this is a novel which, at its end, will leave you unsure whether to applaud it or throw the book against the wall (though this wasn't much of an option in my case since I was reading it on my tablet...) show less