Alberta and Freedom

After loving the first book (Alberta and Jacob)in this semi-autobiographical trilogy by Norwegian Nobel prize winner, Cora Sandel, I have to say I was a bit disappointed in this book. I still loved the writing and thought that Sandel does a fantastic job creating a sense of place, this time Paris as a struggling young adult. But while I found Alberta's shyness and lack of direction understandable and sort of endearing in book one when she was 17, I had less patience for it when she's in her early 20s. Alberta is in Paris now, just kind of hanging around. She's barely working - just writing an article here and there - and subsisting in mice-infested apartments with little to no food to eat. And she just can't seem to get her act together show more to even attempt a career.

I will finish the trilogy, but I wasn't thrilled with this book. The writing is great enough, though, to keep me going. I also think I read that she goes back to Norway in the third book and one of my favorite things about the first book in the series was the excellent description of Norway. show less

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb writing, 12 Jun. 2016

This review is from: Alberta and Freedom (The Alberta Trilogy) (Paperback)
Second volume of the Alberta trilogy: having left our 'heroine' in previous volume (Alberta and Jacob) as a depressed, dissatisfied teenager, living with her parents in the depths of N Norway, this book describes her new life in Paris. What exactly happened back home is only really explained at the end.
Now she has 'escaped' to Paris, where she is on the fringes of the artistic set. She supports herself by writing occasional articles, and a bit of modelling for painters. But life is hard, living in a garret and struggling to make ends meet. Despite her newly acquired freedom from Mama's eagle eye, she still struggles show more for warmth and food. Her flat-mate goes off into an ill-advised relationship, while Alberta's own prospective romance is hampered by her lingering memories of the ties which commitment entails:
"Marriage - the very word dragged, it sounded compelling and burdensome."
Almost a feeling of a 'stream of consciousness' novel at times - but utterly readable - Sandel takes us inside Alberta's head as she lives a somewhat passive existence, craving something better, yet never attempting to find regular work. And leaves the reader on the edge, wanting to find out how things work out in the final volume 'Alberta Alone'.... show less

This second book of the trilogy places Alberta in Paris before the first world war. She hangs out with the artistic crowd around Montparnasse, but woe to Alberta, who is"just a woman." She aspires to being a writer, and indeed has sold some articles on human interest to a magazine. While men artists around her achieve some success, she becomes more and more poor, living in a succession of the cheapest hotel rooms she can find, with bedbugs and mice and the disgusting human smells accumulating under her attic roof. Patriarchal society in the early part of the 20th century being the death knell that it is for the kind of freedom that Alberta seeks, she ends up as so many women before and after her, who have a picture they hold dear in show more their hearts, of an important and meaningful life. show less

Continues on from "Alberta and Jacob" some years later when Alberta is living in Paris, struggling to make ends meet amid artist friends. It is not too important to have read the previous book in the trilogy although a few flashbacks later in the book will make more sense if you have.

An important book for its time in writing about women's issues, based loosely on the author's life. "Alberta and Freedom" continues the story back in Norway a few years further on.