Let Me Sing You Gentle Songs

''July 1942, Vastra Sangeby, Dalarna, Sweden
When the sun dipped behind the wall of trees, we lay down and the white night swallowed us. It has been night ever since.''

Two women find each other in the middle of nowhere, in the heart of the Swedish countryside as spring turns to summer. Divided by age but united in sorrow, Veronika and Astrud begin to unburden their souls as the midnight sun paints Nature in luminous, tender colours until winter comes again, signalling a new beginning.

‘’The grey weather prevailed. It was as if time stood still. It didn’t snow, but nor was there any sun. Invisible crows cowed in an otherwise silent world.’’

The countryside provides the ideal scenery for Olsson’s story to unfold. The show more unpredictable weather, the silence, the nightly sky, the moose and the owls, the firs and the paths, the sun reflecting its healing rays across the open fields. It is as if Mother Nature is standing still, waiting for the words that need to be spoken and heard. The confessions, the pain of the past, the doubts of the future. As the birch trees murmur to each other, the two women of Olsson’s beautiful tale start shaking old feathers.

‘’Kom, satt dig ned till mig, jag skall beratta dig om mina sorger, vi skola tala med varandra om hemlighteter.

Come, sit by me, and I shall tell you all my sorrows; we shall talk to each other about secrets.’’

We experience early spring days and nights. Serene summer evenings. Uncertain autumn afternoons. The bitter cold of winter. We are witnesses of confessions about motherhood and womanhood. About loneliness and voluntary isolation, about dreams born and thwarted. About Life’s cruel tendency to alter everything in the blink of an eye when we’re left alone to pick up the broken pieces. And the silence of the Swedish summer makes their words travel far, entering our hearts.

''Limu, limu lima
Dear God let the sun shine
over mountains so blue
over maidens so small
who wander the woods
in summertime.''

Astrid commits a shocking act that goes against everything that is sacred. Veronika experiences a terrible loss at a time when life seemed an eternal summer. The two women have looked upon the terrible face of Death and their world has fallen apart. However, the power of companionship, the instinct of the human soul to survive and the relationship between the Person and Nature have the power to heal the wounds. When winter arrives, it carries the promise of a clean start.

And this novel will give you the strength to go on in the darkest of times…

‘’...for the day is you,
and the light is you,
the sun is you,
and all the beautiful, beautiful
awaiting life is you.’’

My reviews can also be found on https://theopinionatedreaderblog.wordpress.com/ show less

Many reviewers have talked about what a quiet or serene book this is, and I'd agree. There is such an understated flow, but I found it very powerful and it affected me more emotionally than most books do. While the lessons about love and loss and needing others may seem cliche, they rang very true for me, particularly as I was also reading Bowling Alone at the same time, a disturbing sociological look at the loss of community in the US (I see parallels in Canada).

This is the story of two women: Veronika, who rents a house in northern Stockholm following the death of her fiance, and her reclusive neighbour, Astrid. The two women, although separated in age, are both dealing with grief.

This book explores friendship and its healing powers. It makes excellent use of the seasons of the year as a metaphor for the changes taking place as both Astrid and Veronika deal with their losses.

Sounds good? Well, not as good as I'd hoped. Astrid and Veronika are very alike in their thinking and extremely non-judgemental of each other. This made for an absence of any dramatic tension in the novel. The way the two women spoke to each other was very poetic and sentimental, which gave their conversations an air of show more unreality.

Just too melodramatic for my taste. show less

Astrid and Veronika is a story of friendship and its power to change lives. Astrid is a reclusive older woman, known as “the witch” by locals in her remote Swedish village. Veronika, a young woman mourning the loss of a loved one, moves into the house directly across the street from Astrid. It takes a long time for the two to meet face-to-face; at first Veronika simply waves at the house as she passes on her daily walk, not sure whether she is even noticed. Their initial meeting is a tentative encounter, but sows the seeds of a friendship develops over the course of the novel.

The two women spend a lot of their time together on walks, or having dinner. And as is the case with most female friendships, they spend a lot of time show more talking. They begin sharing their personal stories; Veronika has spent her life searching for love and a sense of place; Astrid’s life has been solitary, full of loss and devoid of love. Entire chapters are devoted to one woman recounting a significant event in her life. I experienced Astrid and Veronika as an audiobook, and this format worked quite well, especially for the “storytelling” chapters where it felt as if I were right there at the kitchen table with them.

Linda Olsson’s language is quite deliberate. She provides tremendous detail in setting each scene. The simplest acts are embellished with visual details. For example, where one author might write, “She sat down on the grass,” Olsson would write something like, “She sat down on the grass, her legs stretched out in front of her, hands folded in her lap.” This same technique was used time and again, whether the women were sitting, standing, walking, driving, cooking, etc. This resulted in some repetition: Astrid seemed to fold her hands across her chest a lot; Veronika was often naked in front of a mirror!

While it’s clear that Olsson wants the reader to see how the friendship changed the lives of both women, Veronika’s impact on Astrid came across more clearly than Astrid’s influence on Veronika. Veronika seemed a bit shallow throughout. Nevertheless, I found this a poignant and beautiful story that I can easily recommend to others. show less

What an excellent first novel. Two women separated by age but not by their experiences with loss, grief and abandonment, find friendship and love in the countryside of Sweden. Written in English, the novel nonetheless has a spareness of language which captured the Swedish landscape in winter, a clean simplicity which is also exquisitely sensitive. The redemptive power of love and friendship sings like an anthem in this delicately told story.

Because it is a first novel, I wasn't reading it over-critically as far as the narrative voice was concerned. I do think that Olsson will grow as a writer, given this start. But the story itself, how it was woven together, the gradual unfolding of each of the women's stories, all of this was handled show more with a deft touch. I could not put this book down until I finished it. It is a quiet book but a good one. show less

What a gem. I didn't want this book to end, but even the ending was perfect.

Linda Olsson has written a small novel of amazing depth and beauty. Things are described in simple yet profound ways, much in the same style as the conversation between the two characters. Both Astrid and Veronika are in pain, and both thought that isolation was the only way of dealing with it. When they find each other, though, a similar chord is struck in each and they piece together a friendship and trust slowly and methodically. Each has a story to tell which comes out slowly and in small bits, and each story will break your heart. But each story also makes each woman who she is--strong, loving and beautiful.

This is a book about connection and show more transformation. It is beautifully written and will stay with me forever. show less

"Astrid & Veronika" recounts the friendship that springs up between two women badly in need of it, and how it saves them. Ms. Olsson describes it very well; the friendship unfolds at a realistic pace and their relationship gains in sweetness as the book travels along. I would like to salute the author for the opening image in this book: the younger woman, Veronika, arrives at a rental home late at night and unloads her car by the light from the headlights. This makes a small tunnel of light in an otherwise black-as-pitch world; thus does hope ignite and life hold the potential for a re-start. Astrid sees this glimmer from her neighboring home and senses a return to life for herself.

The seasons are turned interestingly upon their heads: show more spring is portrayed as the hardest time to bring forth young, while in autumn mothers have the benefit of the fullness of Earth's bounty - it's easy to find food and provide for offspring. The friendship has its hard knocks, and survives everything.

This is a gentle, graceful tale, with the possible subtitle, "Now let me sing gentle songs." This, in fact, is the name of the book Veronika winds up writing. It's life-affirming, wonderfully written, and well worth it. If you haven't checked this one out, do so right away.

http://bassoprofundo1.blogspot.com/2010/07/astrid-and-veronica-by-linda-olsson.h... show less